


blood bank

by her_black_tights



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Accidental Incest, Angst, Brother/Sister Incest, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scenes from November 2052 to September 2053, Post-Apocalypse, Sharing a Bed, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:06:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25757080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/her_black_tights/pseuds/her_black_tights
Summary: It’s the fifth time since Jonas has arrived in the future that he’s almost been caught unaware by a desperate soul and Silja has had to save him. He always looks away when his attacker crumbles into a corpse. Stares at her in that godforsaken way of his that always makes her heart hurt, almost as if he’s disappointed in her for not letting them finish the job.“Do you have a death wish?” she asks, as she straps her rifle to her back. He shrugs in response, which makes her even more frustrated.“I’m tired of saving your ungrateful ass.”“Then stop saving me.”Or: When Jonas crash lands in 2052, Elisabeth asks Silja to keep him safe.
Relationships: Jonas Kahnwald/Silja Tiedemann, Silja Tiedemann & Adam, Silja Tiedemann & Agnes Nielsen, Silja Tiedemann & Elisabeth Doppler
Comments: 31
Kudos: 39





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> When I finished Season 3 of Dark, I was left wanting so much more of Silja and, by extension, her relationship with Jonas. I also felt like there was definitely some sexy tension between them during the time they spent together in 2053. Thus, this fic was born! I don’t think there are any glaring missteps from canon (but, who's to say with this show, honestly) but I will say I do kind of rely on a couple probable assumptions about Silja’s origins:
> 
> 1) When Adam brought her to Elisabeth, he told her that who she was to him and to expect Jonas in 2052 (therefore, when she hangs him in 2053, it’s more about a show of power than her genuinely wanting to kill him).  
> 2) Silja doesn’t really remember Hannah or her life previous to 2041. 
> 
> I might write a sequel to this that corresponds to later events in the show, depending on how much inspiration I have and how much interest there is. :-)

Silja doesn’t have a mother. At least, that’s what Elisabeth tells her, when she’s finally learned how to sign the name of every sort of relative: mother, father, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother. 

_Father?_ she asks, with the small, pudgy hands of a child. Elisabeth shakes her head. The light of their fire is beginning to dim, casting shadows across the cave. Everyone else is asleep or about to be, the air heavy with snores and long exhales. 

_Sister?_

Another shake of her head. 

_Brother?_

Something flickers across Elisabeth’s face, softening all of the places where she’s usually hard. _No. Let’s get to sleep,_ she signs. Before Silja can protest, Elisabeth douses the fire and they never speak of brothers or mothers ever again. 

*

Silja doesn’t like the boy in the yellow coat. She doesn’t like his sad puppy dog eyes nor does she like the way he walks around, stooped and low to the ground like he’s begging for death. Most of all, she doesn’t like how he gets to live outside the caves, but she doesn’t, even though she’s tired of sleeping on the hard rock and listening to everyone else’s farts and snores, echoing off the walls. 

The boy in the yellow coat is named Jonas. When he comes to after she knocked him in the face with the butt of her rifle, she feels a little sorry for how badly she bruised him, but once he comes to, she realizes he’s the type of person who deserves to be hit in the face. The sort who doesn’t know how to sit down and be quiet. When he leaves, Elisabeth doesn’t stop him and tells their group that he’s meant to be left alone.

_Why?_ Silja asks, once the two of them are alone. Elisabeth’s mouth hardens. She pretends that unzipping her sleeping bag is the most interesting thing in the world. Silja taps her on the shoulder until she turns around.

_He’s important_ , she signs, but she doesn't meet Silja’s eyes. 

_Will he help us get to Paradise?_

_Yes. We need to make sure he stays safe,_ Elisabeth replies. She hands Silja her gun and nods toward the mouth of the cave. _Follow him_. 

Like always, she does what she’s told.

*

Jonas sleeps in an abandoned pink house, on the edge of Winden. He doesn’t go many places because there isn’t anywhere to go. Mostly, he walks through the forest, searching for something or someone, she’s never quite sure. He doesn’t carry a gun with him and doesn’t know how to hunt. It’s miracle he hasn’t gotten himself killed, especially considering how little interest he has in staying alive. 

Silja used to follow him at a distance, using the tracking skills she’d developed from years of living in the forest. But, stealth takes effort and, within a couple of days, she decides that Jonas is not worth it.

“I can hear you, Silja,” he says, one day, when she’s been tailing him since dawn. He’s taken her all over the forest, from the cave to the lake and back again, with no real reason for either trip. He stops walking and when their eyes meet, a peculiar feeling takes root in Silja’s stomach that she does not know how to name, only that it makes her hate him even more. 

“So? I wasn’t trying to hide from you.”

He waits for her to catch up before he starts walking again. They fall into step with each other easily. She doesn’t enjoy her time in Jonas’s company, but it is still more interesting than spending her time with Elisabeth’s devotees, who talk of nothing but hell and fire and brimstone.  


“Where are you going?”

“Graveyard.”

Silja wrinkles her nose. “You went to the graveyard yesterday. Why do you need to go back today?”

He doesn’t respond but she watches as his brow hardens with something heavy. He quickens his pace, almost like he wants to lose her, but she catches him before he can get too far. They spend the rest of their walk in a tense, prickly silence. When they get to where they’re going, Silja follows him from grave to grave.

“Who’s that?” she asks, when he lingers in front of a headstone bearing the name Michael Kahnwald.

“My father.”

Envy twists at Silja’s stomach. She doesn’t have a father, not even the memory of one, unlike the fragments she has that sometimes resemble a mother. 

“Did he die in the apocalypse?”

Jonas’s mouth hardens with pain. When he turns away from the grave and starts to walk away, he does not meet her eye. “No.”

He follows the same path that he always does: staring hard at each headstone or thrown together cross, as if he’s willing the names on them to change. Every once in a while, he pauses in front of one, but, Silja does not know what makes those graves different than the ones that he ignores. She knows that none of them really matter to him, not as much as this makeshift one, from after the apocalypse. She’s followed him for long enough to know that this one belongs to someone named Martha Nielsen.

Silja can taste his grief in the air, like she sometimes feels a storm coming before the sky cracks open. 

“Who’s that?” 

He presses a hand to the granite. Traces his thumb the name, his face split with a dark sort of sorrow. “Someone important to me,” is all he says, before he turns away and starts to walk out of the graveyard. 

As a kindness to him and his heavy heart, she doesn’t follow.

*

Jonas gets himself into trouble more often than Silja has the patience for. She translated for Elisabeth when she explained to him that there are threats around every corner, that you must be constantly vigilant. If it isn’t raiders, it’s other unlucky souls such as yourself, desperate for food or water or clothes. Silja's learned how to listen for branches cracking, to grow uneasy in sudden silences. Elisabeth taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a child and she remembers how the recoil shook her tiny body so badly that Elisabeth had to hold her up. 

It’s the fifth time since he’s arrived in the future that he’s almost been caught unaware by a desperate soul and Silja has had to save him. He always looks away when his attacker crumbles into a corpse. Stares at her in that godforsaken way of his that always makes her heart hurt, almost as if he’s disappointed in her for not letting them finish the job.

“Do you have a death wish?” she asks, as she straps her rifle to her back. He shrugs in response, which makes her even more frustrated. 

“I’m tired of saving your ungrateful ass.”

“Then stop saving me.”

An exasperated sigh pushes through her lips. “Do you even know how to protect yourself?”

Another shrug. His face is dirty but she can still make out his eyes, clear and blue. “I’ve made it this far,” he says. He begins to walk away from her and she has to jog to catch up with him.

“Do you know how to use a gun?”

His silence is colored with something dark that she doesn’t know the name of. “I could teach you, if you want,” she hears herself saying, though the thought feels disconnected from her. Too kind, too soft. Elisabeth didn’t give her a choice. She pressed the gun into Silja’s child hands and told her she needed to learn, that only through more death, and more suffering, would they be able to reach the Paradise they all dreamed of. 

“If I learn, will you stop following me everywhere?”

She nods, a white lie. She takes him to the cabin where Elisabeth keeps weapons that she doesn’t want the rest of the militia to know about. For some reason, he refuses to go inside, stands at the edge of the property and waits until Silja re-emerges, a rifle identical to hers below her arm. When she hands it to him, his eyes widen.

“Does it have to be this big?”

“Don’t be such a baby.”

They walk in silence, until they reach a clearing. Silja sets up targets from old cans, just like she remembers Elisabeth doing for her, along the stumps of trees that had been annihilated by the end of the world. The gun is clumsy in Jonas’s hands and she has to bite back a smile at how silly he looks. She takes it from him to make sure the safety is off and bullets are loaded in the chamber. 

“Try hitting one of them,” she says, handing it back to him. She watches as he struggles to figure out where to place his hands. After a few moments of fumbling, he finally gets a good grip and pulls the trigger. Unsurprising, his aim is terrible and the bullet ends up in a tree, at least 3 meters away from the target he was aiming for. Silja is unable to keep the giggles from escaping her mouth.

“Let’s see you do it then,” Jonas retorts. When she glances over at him, she notices that he’s blushing and she doesn’t how this knowledge twists her heart into a new shape. 

Silja moves so she’s standing next to him. When she goes to line up the barrel with the target, her arms move without thought, her body following the choreography that was drilled into her head as a child. Back straight, arms loose, keep your eyes straight ahead of you. When she squeezes the trigger, her body is ready for the recoil. Like always, the bullet lands exactly where she intended.

If Jonas is impressed, he’s good at hiding it from her. 

“Here, let me help you,” she says, remembering how Elisabeth would fix her stance for her, when she was too young to know how to do it herself. When she places her hands on his shoulders, she can feel his bones jump beneath her fingers, so unused to human touch. Heat climbs up her neck and Silja tells herself it’s just because of all the fucking layers she has to wear to protect herself from radiation.

Once his shoulders are square, she lines up his arm. “Like this,” she says, dragging a gloved finger along the length of his straight arm. He nods, eyes staring straight ahead. “Try again,” she says, before taking a step away from him. The shot rings through the air as he squeezes his hand. This time, the bullet lands a meter away from the target. A definite improvement, but not one that’s going to save his life. 

“I’ll leave you alone when you can hit all three without my help.”

Jonas lets out a groan. “But, that’s going to take forever,” he says, relaxing his arm and letting the rifle rest on the ground. She smiles, for the first time in a long time, and it hurts her face a little but she doesn’t mind.

“Not my fault you’re shit at it.”

Jonas rolls his eyes. When she corrects his stance again, he doesn’t flinch beneath her touch. 

*

It’s not that she enjoys spending time with him, it’s that her alternatives are spending time with the rest of the militia, whose every other word is paradise or Sic Mundus, or her own company, which she’s been sick of for years. 

When she was younger, Elisabeth was her everything. They would go on walks together, without anyone else, and Elisabeth would tell Silja about the passage, Paradise, the world that Adam promised them. Every once in a while, something more human would soften Elisabeth’s fingers and she’d tell Silja about what the world used to be like, when she was a girl. Sometimes, things Elisabeth talked about felt familiar to Silja, but she didn’t understand how or why, only that there were shadows in her past that resembled Winden. 

But, Elisabeth doesn’t have time for Silja anymore. Not in the ways she used to. She still relies on her, if anything, even more than she used to, now that Silja is grown up enough that other people at camp listen to her. There is a new sort of certainty to Elisabeth’s eyes now. When she talks about Paradise, it’s almost as if she can taste it. 

When she was young, the Paradise that Elisabeth spoke of felt so real that Silja felt as though she could picture it perfectly. A place where they would be free of pain, of suffering, reunited with everyone that they had lost. Sometimes, she watches Elisabeth’s mouth move in her sleep, wrapping their way around names that Silja is only able to make out from years of practice: Charlotte, Noah, Mama, Papa, Franziska. People that Elisabeth knows are waiting for her, on the other side of the passage.

Elisabeth told her that her mother and father, whoever they may be, would be there too, just like the rest of them, and that used to warm the cold place in Silja’s chest where a mother’s love was supposed to go. But, as she grew older, and Elisabeth’s rule became more and more absolute, she started to wonder if seeing her parents, whoever they may be, would even make her feel anything. Sure, it would be nice to know where she came from, but she didn’t know how to miss or dream of people she barely knew in the first place. The only thing she remembers about her mother is her eyes, large and brown and peering down at her. The biggest eyes in the whole world. 

Jonas no longer pretends that she doesn’t exist. When he hears her behind him, he slows until she catches up with him. They walk together, in a companionable silence. She likes that he doesn’t talk that much, that he doesn’t press her to talk either. After spending most of her time being another person’s voice, she’s starting to forget how to speak in her own. To remember who Silja is, without Elisabeth and Sic Mundus and the promise of salvation.

Silja is startled out of her thoughts by the sound of his voice. When she doesn’t respond, Jonas repeats himself: “are you hungry?” In his hand, he has a piece of jerky. She lets out an excited yelp before grabbing it from him. Lately, she’s been getting back to the caves late, when the fires are cold and there’s not much food left. Usually, she can make a meal out of what’s left, shreds of greasy, rabbit meat, still hanging to the bone, but it’s never enough and her stomach often grumbles with hunger through the night. 

The jerky is stringy but the fat of it fills her chest with warmth and she can’t help from beaming with happiness. To her surprise, Jonas returns her smile and she realizes, for the first time, that there is a certain sort of beauty in the crookedness of his teeth, a familiarity about the softness of his mouth. When their eyes meet, something sharp wedges between Silja’s ribs and she looks away before it can dig in deeper.

They’re on the way back to Jonas’s house. Once they get there, they will part ways and Silja will go back to the caves. He’s spent the day searching, for what, she’s still unsure. It hurts her, understanding the futility of his actions before he can sense it himself. She has watched him for long enough that she knows how this will end: failure and then frustration and then a special sort of recklessness that comes with the loss of hope. 

Without warning, lightning splits sky. They both pull their hoods over their heads; even 33 years after the end of the world, the rain can still burn through your skin or at least make you seriously ill. Silja panics - she’s far from home and any of the usual abandoned buildings she’s used for shelter.

“Follow me,” she hears Jonas yell, somewhere amongst the storm. She sees the outline of him, just barely, and takes off running after it. She’s seen the rain burn through clothes. She’s seen it burn through men. Her heart’s hammering in her chest and every breath hurts but, she does not stop running until she sees where Jonas is leading her, the pink house on the edge of town.

Once they’re inside, Silja can already feel the radiation eating through her protective layers. “Shit, shit, shit,” she exclaims, pulling her gloves from her fingers, her mask from her face, her coat from her body. She hears Jonas doing the same and for a few moments, the only sound that echoes through the ruined house is cursing and the wet slap of fabric and leather against the ground.

Only once she’s examined her skin for radiation burns and found herself clean does she realize that she and Jonas are standing across from each other, in their well-worn underwear. Red climbs up Silja’s neck and she wraps her arms around her body protectively. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees more than she knows she should: the sharp lines of Jonas’s collarbone, the trail of hair that leads into his boxers, the delicate cage of his chest. More than that, she can feel his eyes on her and there’s an unexpected thrill when their eyes meet and he looks away, blushing. 

“There’s a bucket with water in the bathroom, if you want to wash up,” he says, stiffly, and before she can say anything, he runs up the stairs and out of her sight.

The water is cold and Silja’s glad for it. She needs the distraction after feeling the heat of Jonas’s eyes on her bare skin. She takes off her underwear and stands in the bath tub. With every inversion of the bucket, she reminds herself of what she is here to do. Elisabeth will be wondering where she is. She should try to get back before it’s too late. 

She’s surprised by a knock. “There’s some clothes and a towel outside the door,” she hears Jonas say. Once she’s sure he’s gone, she opens the door and reaches out blindly, until she finds what she’s looking for. 

The towel is old and tough on her skin but she’s used roughness and only stops once her skin is raw and clean. The clothes look to be Jonas’s, a pair of cargo pants and a large sweater. The pants are too big for her but she pulls the frayed edge away from the towel and uses it to make a belt. There are no new clothes in the apocalypse; you must always make due with what you have, even if it isn’t the right size.

When she emerges, Jonas is stoking a fire. His hair is wet and he’s wearing new clothes that are stiff from drying on a clothes-line. When he hears her emerge, he looks up but doesn’t meet her eyes.

“Thanks for the clothes,” she says and she’s ashamed of how small and girlish her voice sounds. Jonas doesn’t seem to notice, he just shrugs, like he always does and pushes at the fire with a stick.

Silja bends to pick up her boots. They are caked with mud, but the insides are dry. She sits on the floor and starts to put them on.

“What’re you doing?”

Jonas’s words surprise her and cause her hands to stutter. She glances up to see him staring at her wide-eyed. “Going back to the caves. Elisabeth’s probably wondering where I am. I’ll bring your clothes back in the morning,” she says as she finishes lacing her boot. To her shock, Jonas jumps to his feet.

“No, you’re not. It’s still raining."

Silja frowns. He has a point. She had been hoping that the stupid luck that has kept her alive for this long would preserve her on her walk but, it had been a coward’s hope, to protect her from facing Jonas and whatever fucked-up sort of closeness has grown between them like weeds. 

“What am I supposed to do then?”

“Stay here. At least until the rain’s stopped. You’re a pain in the ass but I don’t want to find your corpse outside tomorrow,” he says, and, she can’t help but see the sense in that. She pulls her boots from her feet and sets them beside the door.

“Fine. But, you’re going to have to give me some of your food. I’m starving,” she says. Her stomach lets out a complimentary gurgle that fills the empty house and, like they’re kids again, they’re laughing and laughing and laughing and even though she’s cold, Silja feels warm. 

He heats them both up a can of lentil soup that has a tinny aftertaste, the last of the army provisions. She doesn’t mind; she’s grown used to all of her food having an edge of metal. It’s preferable to the sourness of rot, which she’s unfortunately experienced more times than she can count, raiding the cabinets of Winden’s long-dead. 

She holds the bowl with both hands and slurps loudly, the spoon that he washed for her forgotten at her side. When she looks up from her empty bowl, Jonas is smiling at her. “What?” she asks, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. 

“Nothing. I’ve just never seen a girl eat like that before.”

He lifts a spoon to his lips, swallows. Neater, but not as efficient. Above them, the rain continues to hammer on the roof. It sounds like it might go all night. Silja wonders if there’s a limit to Jonas’s generosity. She glances around her, at the patchwork house that he calls his home. The windows have been boarded up, other holes in the walls patched over. It offers shelter from the rain, but just barely.

“Was this your house before?” she asks, as she takes in the remnants of a family that once lived here: calendars on the wall, the tattered photos, a table with four chairs, a dwindling warmth. It reminds Silja of a house she sometimes sees in her dreams, where there is a mother with big, sad eyes who makes her breakfast and braids her hair and presses kisses to her forehead. A mother who must not be real, because she’s far too beautiful.

He nods. Lets his bowl hit the floor. Whatever happiness might have pinked his cheeks has given way to something darker. She thinks of the headstone that belongs to his father, that she’s watched him visit more times than she can count. 

“Did you have a mom too? Or just a dad?”

“I had a mom. I still do.”

She doesn’t understand how stubbornly he clings to a hope that’s untethered from the prophecy, from Sic Mundus. How he thinks that he can make something new, that gives him everything he wants. He gets up and walks toward the wall, where a framed picture is hanging.

“That’s them,” he says, handing it to her. In the picture, she sees Jonas, smiling and young, almost unrecognizable. To his side, is a man with sad eyes and a wide mouth, who bears more of a resemblance to the broken boy standing in front of her. When her eyes fall on the woman who must be his mother, her heart jumps into her throat but she doesn’t know why. Something about the woman’s eyes, something about her smile. Silja stares at the picture, transfixed. 

When the spell is broken and she tears her eyes away, there’s a strange look on Jonas’s face. He takes the picture back from her and glances at it again, as if he’s trying to figure out what made her look at it for so long. 

“Is Elisabeth your mom?”

“No. I don’t think I had a mom. Or a dad. Or anyone. That’s what Elisabeth told me, at least."

Her words hang heavy on the air. Thunder shakes the house and the rain beats against the roof.Her hair is still wet, clinging to her head. Shivers shake her body. Jonas notices. She watches as he grabs one of his coats from the nearby rack. When he reaches down to drape it around her shoulders, his fingers graze her neck and Silja swallows a breath that’s sharp like glass.

“You don’t need to take care of me,” she sniffs, indignant, when he’s sitting across from her again. A ghost of a smile floats across his face, but it’s gone before she believes it’s real. 

She blames the warmth that’s climbing up her back on Jonas’s coat, instead of the way his eyes look in the firelight, soft and teasing and a little mean. She’s surprised by how natural it feels, to be with him like this, in this house. It’s strange to feel so safe in the presence of another, especially a man. But, Jonas isn’t like the rough boys she was raised with, who started leering at her the second she sprouted tits, who wanted her for nothing more than a quick fuck in the woods before battle. There’s a foreign sort of softness to him. She knows it will not survive this place. 

“You should sleep here tonight. I know this rain. It won’t stop until morning,” he says. He crushes the embers of the fire underneath his boot. Above them, lightning flashes through the sky and it lights up his face, the places where he’s grown gaunt and tired. She wonders if he’s as lonely as she is, or if the thought of Martha, whoever she might be, is enough to keep him warm.

As much as she might want to argue, she knows he’s right. If the rain doesn’t kill her, the most desperate of men are emboldened in the dark. Elisabeth has forbidden leaving the camp once the sun goes down without at least 2 other armed comrades and that’s only in the most necessary of circumstances.

There is a sharp sort of thrill in her stomach when Jonas leads her up the stairs. Almost as if she’s anticipating something, but she can’t quite figure out what. He takes her to only bedroom in the house. He explains that the other one, his mother’s, had been infested with hives, to the point where it was impossibly to open the door. Silja’s heart is pounding in her chest but she doesn’t understand why. She’s never slept alone, not once in her whole life, but something about being led into someone’s room, that had only been theirs, weaves a sticky feeling between her ribs. 

She wonders if Jonas is nervous too. His hand stutters a little on the doorknob. Once inside, Silja sees that there is only one small bed. She swallows and glances over at Jonas. “I can sleep downstairs,” she says, her voice small and reedy.

“It gets too cold there at night. Here, I’ll sleep on the floor,” he says and he pulls a pillow and a blanket from his bed. She looks away from him, so her throat will loosen and her heart will stop throwing itself against her ribcage. She tries to distract herself by taking in her surroundings, the remnants of his old life: a desk, some books, more photos. She’s drawn to one of them, picture of a younger, happier Jonas with a girl and a boy around his age, smiling ear to ear.

“Was this Martha?” She asks. He nods, his face a mask. She looks down at the picture again. Martha has clean skin, untangled hair, all of her teeth. She doesn’t have a scar whose origin she can’t remember, splitting her face in two. Silja swallows. “She was very beautiful,” she says.

When she turns around, Jonas’s face is torn open with pain. He takes it from her with a rough pull of his hands. 

“She’s still alive,” he says. “There’s still time. I can still save her.”

She doesn’t say anything because she knows there’s nothing to say. Her chest hurts and she doesn’t quite understand why. “You don’t need to give me the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor,” she says. He opens his mouth but before he can say anything, she grabs the pillow and blanket that he had set aside for himself and places them on the floor. She lies down. It is just about as comfortable as the caves. She wraps the blanket tighter around her body, the night chill already biting at her ears.

“Goodnight, Jonas,” she says and if he says anything back, she does not hear him.

*

Silja wakes with a start. She dreamt a dream that she only has when she lets the fire go out before she falls asleep: being frozen in the toxic lake. When she realizes she’s shivering, she sits up and sees that, over the course of the night, the temperature has dipped below freezing, ice clinging to the window and seeping into the house.

She glances over at Jonas. His lips are turning blue, his body shaking just as much as hers is. She cries out his name, shaking him by his shoulders. He comes to drowsily. She’s reminded of their worst winters, one of the first she spent with Elisabeth. Four people died, their bodies seizing up with cold. Silja had been spared because of Elisabeth’s love for her; every night, they shared a sleeping bag, and Silja had been so small then that Elisabeth could hug her to her chest with ease. “I won’t lose you too,” she remembered Elisabeth signing to her, in the loose light of the cave, as everyone around them shivered and trembled. 

Without thinking, she pulls off her clothes and slides her body under Jonas’s covers. Skin-to-skin contact is the fastest way to warm up, she remembers that’s how they saved the ones that were knocking on death’s door. “What’re you doing?” he asks, his voice hoarse. Even though he’s wearing clothes, she can feel the chill of his body through them. 

“Saving your life,” she says. Only once he’s looking at her does she realize that she’s in her underwear, her ancient bra with the underwire poking out and the hand-me-down pair of panties with sagging elastic. But, thankfully, her training kicks in and she moves quickly. “C’mon, help me take off your clothes,” she says, moving to take his sweater off of him. Thankfully, he follows her lead, his fingers clumsy with cold. When she presses her chest to his, it’s like embracing a block of ice. She pulls the blanket he gave her over the one already wrapped around him, in the hopes that it will help conserve body heat.

Neither of them has eaten much lately and the bird bones of his ribs dig into hers. She buries her face into his chest so she doesn’t have to look him in the eye. The edge of his chin is balanced on the top of her head. If she tilted her head up, she could kiss it. Silja’s throat and chest tighten. She can’t remember the last time she was this close to another person. She doesn’t know if she’s ever held anyone to her body like this, with tender hands, willing the life back into them. 

She’s never done this but, somehow, with Jonas, there is a certainty to the way her limbs wrap their way around him, a startling sort of calm that comes from hearing his heartbeat. Only then does she realize how completely their bodies are wrapped around each other, her legs between his, his arms around her back. Her body vibrates with his shivering but, with every passing moment, it lessens in intensity, until she’s sure that he’s only made death’s passing acquaintance.

“You’re lucky I’m here. Or else you might’ve froze to death,” she says, her words muffled by the edge of his collarbone. She hides her blush in his chest and hopes that he’s still too cold to notice.

“The only reason I was going to freeze to death was because I gave you my other blanket,” he replies. She feels the shape his words make in his chest before they enter the world. 

“The only reason you had to give me your other blanket is because you wouldn’t let me leave.”

“You act like I’m the only one with a death wish,” he says, his breath tickling the top of her head. When she tilts her head up, she’s surprised to find him staring down at her, something secret and new held in his eyes, his mouth. The way he’s relaxed into her, no longer tense and shivering. Even an easiness to him. She knows they’re probably warm enough now that she could pull away, maybe even scoot over to the other edge of the bed, but she doesn’t want to. 

“Do you really want to die?”

He doesn’t respond at first. Silja lets herself listen to his heart, the sturdy way it thuds against her. Watches the slow expansion of his ribs as his lungs fill with air. She cannot imagine him cold, like the men she’s had to kill, some of them for his benefit. She wonders if he thinks of her as a murderer. She wonders if he thinks her cruel. She wonders why she cares what he thinks, the stupid boy with the yellow jacket who crash-landed in her world and upended her life. 

“A lot of things would be better if I was gone. Simpler. I’m not supposed to be here,” he says. She feels the vibration of his words in his chest. The skittering of his heartbeat against hers. When he sucks in a breath, she does as well and she loses herself in the rhythm of their ribs expanding and contracting together. “Or, anywhere. I’m not supposed to exist. There’s nowhere for me.”

It surprises Silja, the understanding that rings through her. How he describes something she’s always felt, no matter how close Elisabeth would hug her to her chest or the way the militia clung to every word she said like she belonged with them and spoke with a voice like their own. They all have families. They all know where they came from, can trace lines and lineages back to this broken, no good town that haunts their lives. Silja doesn’t have that. All Silja knows is that one day, she came into Elisabeth’s care and Elisabeth loved her with a love belonged to a lost child.

“I feel that way too. Sometimes,” she says, in a voice that’s new to her. He tilts his head back so he can get a better look at her. There’s a a flickering to his eyes, tender and familiar like a flame. Their hearts beat a rapid staccato, following the same metronome. 

“Really?”

“Everyone here, they’re all from Winden but they have no idea where I came from. Like I appeared out of thin air. And sometimes…” she trails off, struggling to pull the words that she’s never said aloud from her stiff throat. “I dream of a woman who isn’t dressed in rags or covered in scars. She lives in a house, with all the lights on. Before the apocalypse. And, when she smiles at me, I smile too, like I love her,” she breathes, the words falling out of her mouth like dominoes. “I think she might be my mother.”

For a while, neither of them speak. Silja is warm enough now to feel every inch of her body and every inch of his. She notices that one of his hands is tracing designs along her lower back, almost unconsciously. Her skin jumps beneath his touch when his fingers brush against the waistband of her underwear. They suck in a twin breath. 

“Your face is so familiar to me. Like, I’ve known you before here, before now,” he says, finally. When she tilts her head to look him in the eye, she’s surprised to see him looking down at her. Their faces are a breath away from each each other. She shifts her body and he does too. Their hips meet for one terrible, transcendent moment, and when she feels how hard he is, her heart jumps into her throat. 

His hand finds its way to her face so she cannot run away. His thumb smooths over her cheek. There’s a roughness to his fingers and she finds herself arching into it. He pauses beneath her eyes, holding her still. When his thumb drops to trace her lips, there’s something unholy in his eyes and she doesn’t know its name, only that it’s ruined her. Another roll of their hips, this time more purposeful, she doesn’t know which of them started it, only that it makes her bones sing. 

“Jonas,” she says, her voice breathy and raw.

“Do you want to stop?”

She shakes her head. Outside, she hears the storm raging on, wind howling through the forest, rain beating at the trees, but all that matters to her is the steady echo of their breathing. When their lips meet for the first time, Silja feels something like thunder shaking at her ribs, lightning cracking at her spine. It is not a perfect kiss, nor is it neat. There’s always the edge of teeth, the clumsiness of want. When he pulls her body under his, their knees knock together and she catches the sharp edge of his elbow in his side, but none of it matters when he grinds against her and she sucks a bruise into his neck and their bodies come together, uncoordinated and messy and hungry.

They make quick work of each other’s underwear and push it to the bottom of the bed. When he rests his elbows on either side of her head, Silja sucks in a razor-edged breath. She’s done this before, with travelers passing through, other survivors, but she’s never felt as naked as she does now. Jonas is good to her and he doesn’t keep her waiting. Before she asks him for it, he presses a finger inside her then two. Rubs his thumb against her until her cries echo through the house, her nails digging into his wrist. 

She pulls him to her with a kiss and she moans at the way he feels against her without their underwear between them. Sighs into his mouth when he nips at his lip. She feels his hand trembling as he slicks himself in her wetness and lines up with her opening. Almost like he’s nervous. 

“Can you hurry up already?” 

“Can you stop being such a pain in the ass?”

She shakes her head, grinning from ear to ear. But, he wipes the smile clean off of her face when he finally thrusts into her and knocks the breath from her lungs. She feels his smirk on the side of her face and she opens her mouth to give him a hard time about it but, before she can, he pulls a moan from her body, deep and low. It has never felt like this before. She’s never felt like this before. He presses her name into her skin with his groan and it’s hot and permanent like a brand. She wraps her legs around him and pulls him closer. Presses her forehead to his so he’s close enough that she can swallow his breath. When he kisses her, she can taste his grief on his tongue. He’s by no means the most confident or practiced man she’s slept with but there’s something about the determined way he fucks her, the focused line of his brow, the sinews of his arms, that’s lit her on fire from the inside. 

They fall deeper and deeper into the abyss of each other. When her pleasure overtakes her, she cannot tell where she ends and he begins. She has to grit her teeth to keep from screaming out and he leans down and swallows her moans with a kiss. He is quiet but when she clenches around him, he hisses out, his breath hot against her mouth. “Silja,” he groans, so she does it again, until his hips stutter against hers and he spends himself inside her, holding her face and whispering her name. 

She doesn’t know how long they remain pressed together. She knows it is long enough that she memorizes the exact angle of his collarbones. He kisses her on the cheek before he pulls away from her. As soon as he’s gone, Silja’s immediately overcome with the emptiness that’s always been her closest companion. 

He lays at her side. For a few moments, neither of them says anything. Silja looks at him at of the corner of her eye. He’s staring up at the ceiling, his face a mask. Even though she’s buried under a pile of blankets and the weight of their body heat, she feels unimaginably cold. He realizes she’s looking at him and he turns away. “We should try to get some sleep,” is all he says. She nods. Turns away from him, like she knows she should. 

When she finally falls into a fitful slumber, she has a dream that she has not had since she first came to live with Elisabeth. One of a dark room, and a man with a monster’s face but kind eyes, who holds her like she’s something precious as he carries her away from her mother and towhere she’s supposed to fit. 

*

Silja’s not surprised when she wakes up alone.

The chill of the previous night has broken and there is sunlight, peeking through the window. For one blissful moment, she doesn’t remember what happened last night, but when she realizes that she’s naked, it all comes back to her, each moment rendered vivid and terrible and raw in her mind’s eye. 

She dresses quickly, untangling her bra and underwear from Jonas’s blankets. Immediately, she feels the memory of last night in her skin and her heartbeat quickens. Draws her fingers between her legs and feels the places where she’s sore from him. Swallows hard, in the hopes that the pain will distract her from her thoughts. Him not being here means that she should not let herself fall into daydreams. Him not being here means something. 

When she glances over at his desk, she sees that the picture of Martha is face down. 

She finds Jonas in the kitchen. He is making breakfast, porridge from the smell of it. When he hears her come down the stairs, she watches as his shoulders tense and his body stiffens. Shame clings to Silja’s throat, thick and hot. She doesn’t know what she was expecting but the disappointment still weighs on her gut and ruins her appetite. He only turns around when he absolutely has to and there is no tenderness or affection waiting for her. Just regret, jagged and ugly. 

She had nursed a child’s hope, sometime during the night, when his body was pressed closed to hers and she could feel his heartbeat on her back, that, perhaps, this hadn’t been a mistake. But, whatever foolish fantasies she had entertained, of a life without sadness and brutality and loneliness, evaporate into thin air as Jonas stares at her like she’s his worst mistake. When he says her name, it falls to the floor like lead. 

“What?” she snaps, her words bitten off and cruel. He winces and she almost feels sorry for him.

“What happened last night…”

“You mean, when you fucked me?”

He winces again, this time pulling his eyes away from her. “I shouldn’t have done that. We shouldn’t have…” he says, and, even though she knows that that was the only possible thing that he could say, it still shatters something precious inside her. When he moves to comfort her, she pulls her body away from him like his touch is radioactive.

“Why? Because of Martha?” 

She knows it’s a cheap shot but she can’t help herself from taking it. Still, that does not stop her heart from aching when she sees how it hurts him, the way he folds in on himself with self-hatred. It confirms her worst suspicions. Last night didn't mean anything to him. She was just a place for him to bury his pain and nothing more.

“I’ve let myself get distracted. I’ve been here for 2 months and, I’m no closer to finding my way home than I was before. I can’t afford to lose anymore time.”

Silja knows she’s hurting from how well she schools her expression back into its usual mask. It’s a skill she’s perfected, during her years living on the edge of civilization, with only her wits and her gun to protect her. Never let anyone know you’re hurting. Never let anyone know you’re weak. Never let anyone know who you are. She slipped up last night, but that was only because of how new Jonas was to her, she tells herself. That’s all this is, she insists. A slip up. Nothing more. 

“Well, don’t worry. I won’t be around to distract you anymore,” she says. She turns on her heel and picks up her boots from the corner. It’s hard to lace them with how badly her hands are shaking. She hears him saying her name, somewhere in the ether, but she forces him out of her mind until he gives up. By the time she stands up to leave, he’s already turned away, staring off into the distance, where the picture of his family hangs on the wall.

Silja doesn’t let herself cry until she’s halfway to the caves. Even then, it’s only for a few moments. She can’t remember the last time she cried. She can’t remember something happened to her that she felt with every inch of her body, that touched the deadened thing her heart’s turned into. She remembers now why she never lets herself have hope. Whatever relief it provides from her sorry circumstances is always a lie. 

When she reaches the edge of their camp, she sees Elisabeth standing there. Almost as if she’s waiting for something. Silja’s spine stiffens. Elisabeth could interpret her disappearance as an act of treason. She could think that Silja went to the Dead Zone. She’s seen Elisabeth kill men for less. 

But, Elisabeth doesn’t look angry. _Are you okay?_ She asks, her face stern but her eyes soft. Silja nods, but Elisabeth isn’t convinced. As soon as she’s close, Elisabeth places her hand on her shoulder. Warm and firm, like a mother might. For a moment, Silja lets herself be comforted by it. They walk the rest of the way into camp together. To her surprise, there is no anger to Elisabeth’s eyes. 

_Aren’t you going to ask where I was?_ She signs, once they’ve reached the caves. The majority of the other survivors are absent, probably looking for food or whatever other mission Elisabeth has sent them on. Only the elderly remain, their bodies crowded around the fire and faces grey with age.

_I don’t need to,_ Elisabeth replies. There’s a peculiar expression on her face that Silja has ever seen before. When she tries to meet the older woman’s eye, she looks away. _Is he safe?_ She asks. Silja winces at the memory of him and Elisabeth notices. The hand on her shoulder tightens for a moment and then Elisabeth lets go once Silja nods.

_Good. You don’t need to follow him anymore_ , Elisabeth says. Before she can ask why, her adoptive mother disappears, into the dark mystery of the cave. Leaving her all alone, with nothing but her emptiness and dreams of Paradise. 


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who left kudos and commented, you inspired me to keep going with this idea. So, what was supposed to just be a one-shot is now a 3-parter. This chapter kind of summarizes the time between January 2053 and May-ish 2053. Obviously, there isn't a lot about this time period in canon so there was lots to explore and expand upon. Hopefully, nothing is grievously in conflict with canon. There will be one more part after this that will cover Silja and Jonas going to the Dead Zone and her meeting Adam. 
> 
> CW: mentions of cannibalism (nothing graphic).

In the nights following her and Jonas’s coupling, her dreams of the past take on a more definite shape. Sharper, with edges that she can grip in her hands. When the dream mother serves her pancakes (a dish she only knows about from the books Elisabeth used to teach her to read), her tongue sings with an otherworldly sweetness that she’s never experienced while awake. When the dream mother bends over to wipe sugar from her sticky face, Silja smells jasmine, honeysuckle, lavender, hanging heavy in her hair. When she hears the dream mother crying in another room, it hurts, like a stake being driven into her heart. 

But, those are the good dreams. The ones where love feels close and she wakes up warm with it. She has the bad ones far more frequently. When she sees the man with the ruined face, who the dream mother speaks to so imploringly, so sadly, she cannot make him out apart from his eyes, kind and blue. Eyes that spark something inside her but she doesn’t know what its name is, only that it turns her stomach and makes her heart ache. For the day following, she’ll haunt the periphery of her life like a ghost. 

At night, Elisabeth comes to Silja, her brow heavy with concern. 

_Are you sick?_

_No, just tired._

Elisabeth kneels down next to her. When she leans close to Silja to look at her face, she smells like fire. She presses her hand to Silja’s forehead to check her temperature, like she used to when Silja was small. There is something soothing about Elisabeth’s touch and Silja lets herself lean into it.

_You should get some sleep._

Silja rolls her eyes, even though she knows Elisabeth hates it when she does that. _Easier said than done,_ she signs. Elisabeth takes a seat next to her. Around them, their comrades mutter and murmur, getting ready for bed. _It’s not falling asleep that’s the problem. It’s what happens once I’m asleep. I keep having these dreams,_ she explains.

Something strange flickers over Elisabeth’s face. She leans in closer to Silja, so no one can see what they’re saying to each other. _What kind of dreams?_ Elisabeth asks. 

_Dreams that feel like they’re real. But, they can’t be. Because I don’t remember them,_ Silja signs. Elisabeth’s face reminds her of Jonas’s, when she told him how she felt like she didn’t belong. Recognition, painful and sharp. _Do you have them too?_

Elisabeth nods. They sit in silence for a while, the only sound the flickering of the last fire. Elisabeth usually puts it out, when she finally goes to sleep. 

_Do you know how to make them stop?_ Silja asks.

Whatever openness Elisabeth’s face might have held immediately closes. She leans away from her, spine straight as a board. When she looks at Silja again, it’s with the mask she usually wears. 

_No. But, they will end when we get to Paradise._

Silja tries to be soothed by those words, like she was when she was a child. She remembers the first time Elisabeth told her about Paradise. The way she held Silja’s hands in hers and pressed her words into them, her mouth moving silently as if she was reciting an incantation. Silja had been young then, maybe 6 or 7, but already she had seen enough to be enchanted by the idea of a place where there was no suffering. 

On the nights that she couldn’t sleep, she would climb into Elisabeth’s sleeping bag and she would tell her stories about how wonderful their lives would be there, in the land that Adam had promised them. How, there, Silja would finally be reunited with her real mother and father, who would love her and care for her, and she would never have to worry about men in torn-up military uniforms and black masks or acid rain or radiation poisoning. Even on the most difficult nights, when she could hear the screams of the unlucky survivors caught outside their cave after the sun went down, Elisabeth’s stories of Paradise would lull her to sleep.

She tries to tell herself the story of their savior Adam and his graciousness, his vision for their new world. But, whenever she feels any sort of hope begin to sink into her bones, Jonas’s face flashes across her mind’s eye and pulls her into the dark. 

Every night, her dreams become more distorted. Sometimes, the dream mother turns into Elisabeth and she’s screaming and crying and gnashing her teeth and Silja doesn’t know why. Other times, the dream mother will wear Silja’s face, stretched out and wrong. Even worse, sometimes there will be no mother, there will just be Silja, and the wretched carcass of Jonas’s house, coming down around her ears. 

Worst are the ones with Jonas. She’s tried her best to forget about him and while she’s awake, she comes pretty close. After living her life at the edge of existence, she’s learned how to hide her pain from herself. To throw herself so thoroughly into the work of surviving, she forgets about everything else. 

But at night, her defenses are weakened. He flits in and out, with his sad face and his cruel mouth. Sometimes, he sits beside her in front of the dream mother. He speaks to her in a language that Silja doesn’t understand and when they notice her misunderstanding, they laugh and laugh until she cries and abandons her pancakes. Other times, he’s the one making the dream mother cry and Silja beats at him with small fists to try to get him to stop.

Once, and only once, he appears in her dreams of the man with the ruined face. It is the one where she’s sleeping in a bed in a strange room. She knows her mother is close to her; she can hear her breathing. Suddenly, the room goes silent. Silja opens her eyes. This time, the man isn’t ruined; instead, he wears Jonas’s face like a mask. 

When she wakes, it’s with a scream.

*

The next morning, there is a sharp chill in the air. Silja is thankful for the winter clothes she found the previous day and layers two of them on top of each other before stepping outside the caves. The others are elsewhere, scavenging and hunting or carrying out whatever other tasks Elisabeth has assigned to them.

She’s been keeping all of them busy, stocking up on food and supplies. Silja usually goes scavenging on her own. Since executions have becoming more frequent, most of her fellow survivors have been holding her at arm’s length. Almost as though they hold her responsible . She doesn’t mind; loneliness has always felt more comfortable than friendship. Jonas has reminded her that nothing good comes from getting close to people. But, today, Elisabeth stops her before she can get too far from the caves. 

_I need your help with inventory,_ she says. Silja lets out a groan. Inventory is her least favorite chore. 

_Why can’t Asher do it? He’s good enough at Sign Language,_ she protests, as they walk to the dilapidated shack that they use for food storage.

_I don’t trust Asher,_ Elisabeth replies. Before she can respond, Elisabeth quickens her pace, so she cannot read her hands. “Fuck you,” Silja murmurs under her breath, a child’s impulse that she’s immediately ashamed of. Thankfully, Elisabeth doesn’t see her lips move and they are able to continue their walk in peace. 

Once they’re close to the shack where they store their food, Silja’s neck begins to itch with unease. Almost as though she can feel someone’s eyes on her. Elisabeth doesn’t seem to notice. When they reach the door, she’s surprised when Silja hangs back. _I need to check something out. I’ll meet you in there,_ she signs. 

_Don’t do anything stupid,_ Elisabeth replies. Silja rolls her eyes but agrees to not take any unnecessary risks. When the shack door clicks closed behind Elisabeth, she sets out, retracing her steps. She keeps her rifle close in case of trouble. Whoever’s following them wasn’t doing a particularly good job at it, so she’s not too concerned. It snowed a couple nights ago, and her boots slosh through the mud and ice. 

It doesn’t take long for her to feel the itch again. Whoever’s followed them is clearly interested in her, not the food. This realization unsettles Silja’s stomach. She slows her walk, listening to the sounds of the forest. Trying to pick out what doesn’t sound familiar. When she catches an unexpected crunch, she spins around and unholsters her gun, pointing it directly in the face of whoever’s been following her.

“Jonas?”

As soon as she recognizes him, she lets her rifle fall. He looks different than the last time she saw him, wiry and wide-eyed like the stray dogs that haunt Winden’s ruins. 

“Sorry for scaring you,” he says, small and sheepish. She told herself that if she ever saw him again, she’d spit in his face. It’s what he deserves, for humiliating her like that. But, when she sees how pitiful he is, knock-kneed and hungry, her spite turns to ash in her mouth.

“Why were you following us like that? If Elisabeth had caught you instead of me, you’d be dead,” she says, holstering her rife. He doesn’t seem too disturbed by this prospect. A month has passed, a veritable century in this world where your death is far more certain than your survival, but he hasn’t changed one bit. 

“Is that where you store your food?” he asks, jerking his chin in the direction of the shack. Silja nods. He looks to his boots, almost like he’s ashamed. “Listen, I know that you probably hate me after what happened. And, I don’t blame you. But, I ran out of food a couple days ago and still pretty shit at hunting…” he trails off, his cheeks turning pink. Silja hates herself and the way her heart softens for him.

“Here,” she says, handing him a pouch of rabbit jerky that she had brought with her. “That’s all I have on me. Elisabeth and I are taking inventory today. I’ll count some stuff wrong and set it aside for you. Can you meet me back here at sunrise?”

His eyes go wide, almost like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s hearing. Then a smile, soft and sweet with relief, spreads across his face and it surprises Silja, how much it lights up her insides. He thanks her too many times for Silja’s comfort and her cheeks are still pink when she returns to the shed.

_What happened?_ Elisabeth asks, her hands trembling a little. Silja feels guilty then, for leaving Elisabeth and for her future betrayal of her. This food is promised only to Sic Mundus. For a moment, she reconsiders. His presence in her life has brought her nothing but misfortune and pain. It’s not her problem whether he lives or dies. 

Unbidden, she remembers the night that they spent together. The delicate cage of his ribs, pressed against hers. The way his mouth wrapped around her name. The gentle kiss he placed on her cheek when their bodies came apart. He seems sadder now, and even more lost, and for some reason, his abjection has called upon something inside her. A part of Silja that she’s always tried to keep tucked away. 

_It was just a wolf. I had to scare it off,_ Silja signs. Elisabeth regards her coolly for a few moments, but ultimately, accepts her story. They walk through the shack together, cataloguing their supplies. Silja keeps count of everything, on the notepad that Elisabeth keeps in the pocket of her coat. Whenever she isn’t looking, Silja sets something aside for Jonas, small items, that she hopes Elisabeth won’t notice. 

After a few hours of grueling, meticulous cataloging, they finish. The sun is setting as they walk back toward the caves. Her stomach grumbles. The jerky she gave Jonas was supposed to be her lunch. She prays that there’s still food cooking over the fire when they get back. 

Once they’re a couple minutes out from the shack, Elisabeth stops all of a sudden. Silja jerks to a halt alongside her. _That’s strange,_ Elisabeth signs, looking around them. _I don’t see any wolf tracks,_ she adds, once Silja’s pulse has quickened and her stomach has begun to churn with unease. She swallows. When Elisabeth turns to look at her, it’s with the mask of a prophet, rather than a mother.

Over the past couple weeks, Silja’s begun to wonder if she should be scared of Elisabeth. She knows the others are. She can hear the conversations whispered behind hands, in dark corners where they know she can’t read their lips. She’s seen the way their spines stiffen when Elisabeth returns to camp. They still love her, yes, they will always love her, the woman who saved them all from certain death. But, their devotion has grown heavy with fear and dread. The kind promised to gods who do great and terrible things.

She wonders if Elisabeth could stand watching her hang like the others. On bad days, she feels like it could be possible. There’s been a narrowing to Elisabeth’s focus that has unsettled her. They are so close, she tells them every night over the fire. So close to salvation and Paradise. There can be no missteps, she tells them in Silja’s voice, and finality always finds its way into her throat as she translates the rapid, impassioned movements of Elisabeth’s hands. 

But, there are still days where the old Elisabeth slips through. The one who braided Silja’s hair into pigtails when she was too young to do it herself, who kissed her forehead when she had a fever, who told her stories about her adventures before Silja came to her, with a boy named Noah who had hair like gold and eyes like starlight. It’s hard to think of that woman, the one that Silja loves with all of her heart, doing something so horrible. 

_Do you trust me?_ she signs. 

_Of course I do,_ Elisabeth replies, her hands quick and decisive. 

_Then, why are you accusing me of lying?_

She can tell her words hit Elisabeth square in the chest from the way her mask falters. She apologizes, and they continue walking. Remorse weighs Silja down like a stone and she walks behind Elisabeth so she cannot see her face.

*

She barely sleeps that night and little snatches of rest she catches are dreamless. When she sees sunlight begin to creep in the mouth of the cave, she gets up quietly. Elisabeth is asleep next to her. Silja is careful in her movements, so she does not wake her or any of the other survivors. 

When she gets to the shack, Jonas is there, waiting for her. His face is covered like hers and his eyes are far-off, distant. He lifts his body from where he’s leaning.Gives her a small wave, which she returns with a roll of her eyes. She pulls the key from around her neck, looped onto a cord of leather. She unlocks the door and waits for him to slip inside before she locks it behind them. 

Once they’re inside, they both pull their face masks down and their hoods off. Silja makes a point to not look at him for too long before retrieving the items she set aside: dried apples, preserved venison, a bag full of dried cherries, a large portion rabbit jerky. Enough for almost a week, if he’s smart about it. 

“Here you go,” she says. He says thank you over and over again, each time more desperate and raw, and she’s reminded of all of the people she’s watched go hungry during her life: men, women, children. She wonders what would have happened to him if he hadn’t found her. How many days he had left, before he became too weak to save himself.

“Why are you helping me?” he asks. She’s reminded of the way he looked at her the first time she saved his life. It was one of his first few days in 2052, when fury and despair had turned him reckless. She trailed him from a distance then, always a few steps behind. She did not know what he was looking for, only that she knew he wasn’t going to be able to find it. Suddenly, the light of a drone shown down in front of him but he did not slow. Silja ran, as fast as she could, and pulled him out of drone’s sight and behind a tree. He had exclaimed in surprise, he did not know her yet, did not know that he could trust her, and she remembers how angry he had been, even when she explained that she was just trying to protect him. He had not been grateful; distrust sharpened his mouth and he told her to leave him alone. He shook her off shortly after and she did not follow. 

“Because I don’t hate you,” she says, quietly, almost under her breath.

“What?”

“Before. When you found me in the forest. You said that I must hate you. I don’t,” she says, all the words running out of her mouth at once. She sneaks a look at him and there’s a strange expression flitting across his face that makes her stomach sick. “I mean, it’s not like what happened was a big deal, or anything. We just had sex,” falls out of her mouth gracelessly, in the hopes that it will wash the sentiment away from her words. 

Jonas’s cheeks redden. He looks away from her to hide it but isn’t fast enough. Despite herself, Silja finds herself smiling.

“Good,” he says and his voice sticks in his throat a little. He tucks the rest of the food into his backpack and pulls himself to his feet. Silja follows. 

“Surprised to see you trying to stay alive. Big change from when we first met,” she teases, as she locks the shack up behind them. Jonas rolls his eyes and pulls his mask over his mouth. “You’ve made the right choice. Starvation sucks.”

His eyes widen a little then and she’s reminded of how different their lives have been. Jonas has never had to watch someone collapse in on themselves from hunger. He’s never seen so much of what she has: death of all sorts, pain of all kinds. She envies him for that, she realizes now. But, more than that, she pities him. It must be horrible to have so much and have it all taken from you. It seems to have destroyed him. She’s glad she hasn’t had to suffer like that. She doesn’t think she could bear it.

“Can I come again next week?” 

She nods, even though she knows this is a terrible idea. There is only so much food and the worst of winter is almost upon them. But, she can see in his eyes that he has no other options. When she returns to camp, she’s been gone long enough that Elisabeth’s wondering where she’s been.

_It’s not like you to be up early,_ she signs to her, once she’s seated next to her by the fire. Everyone else is just starting to wake up. Silja hopes that she won’t have to do much translating today, her head feels like it’s full of sludge. Elisabeth is eating a handful of berries and hands some to her. 

_Couldn’t sleep,_ Silja signs back. She focuses on eating so she doesn’t have to look at Elisabeth anymore. 

*

It isn’t as hard as she thought, leading this double life. During the week, she sets aside food gradually, in small quantities, so no one will notice. She volunteers to do inventory every week and though Elisabeth is surprised, Silja thinks she’s mostly pleased. _I’m glad you’re taking on more responsibility,_ she signs to her and that is the one moment where Silja considers fessing up. But, thankfully, the feeling dissipates quickly. 

The next time she sees him, it’s less awkward. They don’t talk much but what they do say is warm. When he leaves, they both wave at each other, big and friendly. The time after that, is even better. He tells her about what kind of food he misses from 2019 and she asks him to describe Toast Hawaii multiple times, just because it sounds so strange.

Silja doesn’t know if she’s ever had a friend before. Not one her age, at least. What she doesn’t know from firsthand experience, she’s supplemented with books. She thinks Jonas needs a friend. Someone to talk to. She’s watched loneliness turn men inside out, saw it eat away at children until there’s nothing left but rage. 

Now, he lingers after he finishes his breakfast more times than not. “How old are you?” he asks, one day, his lips stained with berries. She motions for him to wipe his mouth and he does with a blush. 

“I don’t know. Elisabeth says I’ve been with her since I was four or five but never known for sure. That would make me 16? 17? It’s not like it matters.”

“If you were in 2019, we would’ve been in the same grade,” he says, leaning his head against the wall. Silja finds herself enchanted by his words. Imagining a world, where she might’ve been lucky enough to go to high school. She only had one book that depicted the experience, that had a sparkly pink cover and seemed to be written exclusively for teenage girls. She’d found it in a house a couple summers ago and kept it for herself because she knew Elisabeth would be upset if she found it. She told Silja she should only dream of Paradise, not the wretched world that they were going to leave behind. 

“What was school like?” 

“What do you mean? It was just school,” he says. Only when he sees her face fall does he realize that she doesn’t understand what that means. “It’s not that interesting. Do you really want to hear about it?”

She nods. They stay there for longer than they should. Jonas tells her about classrooms. He tells her about principals and teachers and the difference between them. He explains tests and homework. She asks about school plays and he lets out a groan because he doesn’t like them, but he’d always go see them anyway because Martha was in them. It hurts a little to hear Martha’s name, like sand getting caught in a partially healed wound. Thankfully, he changes the subject quickly, to cutting class and trying not to get caught. “I wasn’t ever any good at it,” he adds and that doesn’t surprise her. 

“What were the names of all of your friends?” she asks, after she hears him repeat the same ones a couple of times.

His brow furrows. She thought that friendship was a happy thing and he doesn’t look happy when he lists each one: “Bartosz, Martha, and Magnus. Bartosz was my best friend. Martha and Magnus were brother and sister. Sometimes, Franziska…” Jonas trails off, his eyes distant and far-off. “Actually, Franziska was Elisabeth’s sister.”

Silja’s eyes widen. Franziska. She’s watched Elisabeth mouth that name in her sleep so many times. “You knew Elisabeth? In 2019?”

“Kind of. She was younger than me so we didn’t really spend much time together.” 

The very idea of a young Elisabeth fascinates Silja. One without scars, without bitterness. Who still had a Mama and a Papa and a Franziska and a Charlotte, whoever that might be. She tries to imagine what that must have looked like but draws a blank. “What was she like?”

Jonas looks at the ceiling. “Different than she is now. But, also, sort of the same. Franziska would complain about her. Stealing her lipstick, her sweaters, stuff like that. Apparently, she was really annoying,” he says, smiling a little at the memory. Silja finds herself smiling too. It lingers, after she closes up the shack behind them and tells Jonas she’ll see him next week. “I’ll try to remember more about school for the next time we see each other,” he says, and something about the expectation in his voice makes her heart sing. She floats out of the clearing and into the forest.

Until, she comes face to face with a very adult and very angry Elisabeth. _You lied to me_ , she signs, as soon as she sees her, and Silja’s blood runs cold. She lifts her hands to explain but she’s silenced with a wave of Elisabeth’s hand.

_You know better than anyone. The food is only for Sic Mundus._

Silja’s head is swimming, her body thrumming with adrenaline. When she answers Elisabeth, it’s with shaking hands and she says the words aloud: “he was hungry. I could not let him die.” She hates how pitiful the truth sounds, how it reveals the way he has ruined her. Softened the places where she used to be cruel and sharp. 

She feels tears stinging at the edges of her eyes and she rubs them away with the back of her hand. A wave threatens her, all the terror and dark she’s always trying to outrun. When a sob bubbles past her lips, she’s surprised by the feeling of a hand on her shoulder. She looks up and sees Elisabeth next to her, no longer wearing the mask of an executioner. 

_You care for him_ , she signs and it is not a question. Silja nods. She watches as the remaining anger peels away from her face. Gives way to something worse and when they look at each other again, Elisabeth regards her like a stranger. 

_He’s not from this time. He doesn’t know how to survive._

_That’s his fault. He could have joined us but he chose not to,_ Elisabeth replies. Silja sighs. She does have a point. She remembers how Elisabeth extended the protection and bounty of Sic Mundus to Jonas when he had arrived. He had, of course, refused it, like he refuses anything that might be good for him. 

_He was being stupid. But, that doesn’t mean he deserves to die,_ Silja signs. She watches as Elisabeth works her words over in her head. After a few moments, a strange sort of calm spreads over her face. It unsettles something deep in Silja, but she doesn’t know it’s name, only that her heart is beating impossibly fast.

_Fine. He can eat our food. But, he must follow our rules. And, if he steps out of line, it’ll be your job to bring him to me._

Silja swallows. She accepts the deal because she knows that this is the only one she will get. Elisabeth is not known for her mercy. All she can do is hope that a few months of hunger have taught Jonas his lesson.

*

The next week, she arrives well before he does. Her way is lit by stars, her body propelled forward by a brutal sort of dread. She had left earlier than she usually did; she knew if Elisabeth had been awake, she would have insisted on coming with her. 

He appears at the usual time, just before the sun peaks over the forest. When he sees her, he waves, big and friendly, and she forces herself to return the gesture. 

“You’re here early,” he says, pulling down his mask. She does the same and she sees from the way he steps back that her expression betrays everything. “Is something wrong?” he asks. She looks at her hands, so she doesn’t have to look at him.

“Elisabeth found out that I’ve been giving you food,” she says. As soon as the words leave her mouth, her adoptive mother’s face, split open with betrayal, flits across her mind’s eye and she winces at the memory. She’s never disappointed her before. Not like this. 

“Are you in trouble?”

Silja laughs humorlessly. If only it was that simple. It’s not one of their most sacred rules, but food has always been part of Elisabeth’s hold on the other survivors. It’s easier to win over hearts and minds when you fill their bellies. 

At the beginning of the apocalypse, there had been army rations and a marketplace, where people were able to barter their remaining nonperishables. But, that was before the rest of the world decided to wash its hands of Winden and all areas affected by their apocalypse. They built a wall around everywhere that had ruined by radiation and locked everyone inside, even the military. Leaving everyone inside without food, without resources, without hope. What ensued was a bloodbath. After, the only people who were able to survive where those who learned how to make do with hunting and trying to coax the inhospitable soil into giving them sustenance. 

Elisabeth said that Noah had saved them. He had been one of the only people left alive who knew how to live without electricity, supermarkets, factory farming, all of the trappings of modern life that Silja always thought sounded like a fairytale. He had taught Elisabeth everything he knew and, together, they had found a way to survive in the wasteland that Winden had turned into. Their small garden plot is one of the only reliable sources of nutrition. The remains of the military went a different route. Silja has gotten used to stumbling upon bones big enough to belong to a full-grown man with bite marks the shape of human teeth. The drones are theirs, a way to find survivors who are alone and vulnerable. 

Silja doesn’t know what happened between then and now, where Noah might have gone, what turned Elisabeth’s heart to stone. All she knows is that, her whole life, food has never just been food. It’s been a means of control. 

“Well, that depends on you,” she says, rising to her feet. “You taking food is only a bad thing if you aren’t part of our group. It’s only for us. Sic Mundus Creatus Est.”

Jonas’s face changes as he hears her say the sacred words. Almost as if he recognizes them. “The one at the caves?”

“Everyone who doesn’t join us dies eventually. I’ve watched it happen. Either they starve to death or scavengers kill them for their shoes or they’re picked up by the men in military uniforms or they freeze. It always ends the same way. Outside of the army, we’re the only ones who survive,” she says, clenching her fists so hard her nails dig into her skin. When she glances at him, he doesn’t look convinced. She can see his death wish, plain as day, taking hold of him. 

She knows there is only one way to convince him, but it hurts her the most, makes him leaving her a certainty. But, he’s become precious to her. Precious enough that she’ll say anything to make sure he stays alive. “I know you don’t care much about your own life. But, I know you care about others. The ones who will perish in 2020. If you die, you cannot save them. And, trust me, you don’t want to die here. There’s no good death. Only suffering.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while. She hopes against all hope that he is not the same boy he was when they first met, looking for his death around every dark corner. Behind him, the sun is rising and it makes his hair look like a halo.

“I don’t want to sleep there,” he says, finally. Silja’s heart is pounding in her ears, so loud that she almost doesn’t believe what she’s hearing.

“You don’t have to. All that changes is that you’ll get food there, instead of here. And, if Elisabeth wants you to come to the caves, you have to come. Anything you find, food or otherwise, has to be shared with the group. Oh, and you have to follow the rule.”

“The rule?”

Next to Elisabeth, the rule had been the closest thing Silja had to a parent. She’d always liked the simplicity of it, the way it gave her life a firm line that should never be crossed. The certainty it lent her, in a world driven solely by chaos. Every morning, she woke up not knowing how she might die, only that it could happen at anytime. But, she knew one thing: no matter how much Elisabeth loved her, she would have her executed if she stepped one foot into the Dead Zone. Sometimes, when despair pulled at her hard enough that she almost let go of hope, she thought there might be some of mercy in that. Better than getting eaten by men in camouflage, anyway.

“It’s pretty easy to follow. We just can’t go into the Dead Zone. It’s our job to keep it safe.”

Something sharp flashes across Jonas’s face and she doesn’t like the look of it. “Why can’t we go inside?” he asks.

At first, Silja doesn’t know what to say because, to be honest, she’s never known. There is something sacred about the power plant, something secret, that must be protected at all costs. But, she’s seen the way Elisabeth’s looked at it, out of the corner of her eye. With an awe that’s sharpened with fear. She pulls the answer that Elisabeth gave her when she was a child who asked too many questions, before she was old enough to believe in the promise of salvation. 

“Because, we’re not supposed to. What other reason do you need?” she says, indignantly. “Besides, whatever’s there, it’s not good enough to die for. If you’re caught, Elisabeth will have you hanged.”  


Behind him, she can see the sun kiss the tops of the trees. Her bones rattle with impatience so, before he can ask anymore stupid questions, she grabs him by the hand and drags him away from the shack.

“C’mon, if we don’t get back to the caves soon, all the food will be gone.”

They continue that way, hand in hand, until they can see the smoke from the fire Elisabeth stokes every morning. She lets him go only when she’s sure that he won’t slip away.

*

He comes every couple of days, usually in the morning. If he doesn’t see her, he waits at the edge of camp until he does. He will not talk to any of the other survivors and he asks for her by name. 

“Silja, your stray is here for his scraps,” Asher yells at her one day and Silja’s ears turn bright red underneath her hair. 

“Fuck you, Asher,” she says, but her voice sounds more girlish than usual. He definitely notices, his wide mouth pulling into a smirk. She flips him off but she knows the damage’s been done. When she returns to camp, she’ll have to deal with Asher jeering at her for the rest of the afternoon, until Elisabeth returns and he’s reminded that Silja is someone to be feared.

There’s a cold anger to Jonas’s eyes when she reaches him, food in hand. He takes it and puts it into his backpack, without taking his eyes off of Asher’s retreating figure. “What’s that guy’s problem?” he asks, as he begins to walk to the clearing where they eat together. It’s a habit she fell into when she was still sneaking him food that she’s been unwilling to give up.

“Nothing. He’s just an asshole,” Silja says. They take a seat underneath one of the few trees without a hive and he hands her some deer jerky. They lean against the broad trunk of the tree and Silja tries her best to focus her eyes in front of her. 

It’s harder now, to silence the part of her that aches for him. At first, she’d been able to bury those feelings in the pure-hearted urge to keep him from starving to death. Instead of fixating on the width of his shoulders, the long lines of his fingers, she would think of the sharpness of his collarbones, the hollowness of his cheeks. But, a couple months of regular meals has been good to him; his slightness has given way to the slow creep of manhood. He does not smile often but, when he did, it’s for her. She tells herself she can’t think too much of it, the lost dogs of Winden wag their tails for anyone who gives them food, but that does not stop her heart from fluttering whenever she notices him looking at her in that kind-eyed way of his.

For one terrible moment, Silja considers telling Jonas the real reason that Asher is awful to him: he’s jealous. That once, she and Asher had sex, just like she and Jonas did, and he’s upset that he no longer holds her attention. She wonders how Jonas would react. They haven’t talked about what happened between them, all those months ago, since the first time they met at the shack. His shyness had surprised her. None of the boys she’s grown up with are meek or mild; when they get laid, they make sure everyone knows. Sex is so much more than sex to them; it is an act of defiance, in the face of a vengeful world that wants them all dead.

She wonders how he would react to this information about her and Asher. Would he even care? Is he ever kept awake by the knowledge of what her body feels like against hers, like she is? Does he even think of her, unbidden, and remember the smell of her hair? Is there a part of him that aches, like she does, whenever she’s reminded of the way they fell apart so easily? Or, does he think only of Martha and his desperate wish to get home?

In the end, she doesn’t say anything. She never does. She knows Jonas, he spooks easily, and she doesn’t want to lose the small good of their friendship. When he finishes eating, he gets to his feet. Without her asking, he holds his hand out to her and she takes it. The callouses of his palm catches on hers and Silja blushes from how electric it makes her feel. Once she’s on her feet, she drops his hand like it’s radioactive and pulls up her mask to hide her blush.

“Be careful,” she says, like she always does. He rolls his eyes and pulls his pack onto his shoulders. 

“You’re worse than my mama,” he says and Silja hopes she isn’t imagining the pink in his cheeks. He leaves, with a wave, heading in the direction of the cemetery where Martha is waiting for him. She watches as the yellow of his coat disappears into the dark of the forest and, like always, she prays that this will not be the last time she sees him.

*

She can feel herself getting used to him. Like, she got used to speaking with her hands instead of her mouth or learned how to treat the suggestion of love as the real thing or forgoing all temporary pleasures for the dream of Paradise. She tries to resist. He’s already let her down once before and, deep down, she knows he will do it again. Anything for his Martha, his mother, his perfect life from before in a world where Silja doesn’t exist. 

But, Jonas makes for good enough company that she doesn’t have it in her to tell him to fuck off. He flits in and out of her life, but she sees him frequently enough that she’s grown to trust that he will come back. He meets her outside of camp most days, especially when she’s going scavenging. He tells her that he wants to learn. “So you don’t have to worry about me as much,” he says and she rolls her eyes but smiles all the same. 

She teaches him everything she knows. Which houses have been ransacked and which still have treasures inside them. How to tell whether someone is in the house that you’re about to enter and what to do about it. The way to make yourself small and slip between trees so you can avoid the drones. How to pick belongings from the dead with deft fingers, so you never touch the places where they’ve turned rotten.

In return, he tells her about the families that used to live in each house. Which ones had secrets and which ones didn’t. He shows her where Elisabeth grew up, a small house, not far from his. Tells her about how they used to spend their summers: the Kanhwalds, the Tiedemanns, the Dopplers, and the Nielsens, all weaving in and out of each other’s lives. Every once in a while, he’ll go deathly silent and his eyes will go dark and she will know then that he’s remembering something that hurts. 

Today, they’re looking through the house closest to the Dead Zone. When they walked up to it, he told her that it belonged to his best friend Bartosz. Silja recognized the name from Jonas’s more ridiculous stories, the ones that make her laugh. “They were the richest people in town,” he explained, as he lead her up the hill that led to her house. Silja kept her rifle at the ready. She told him that the house was probably picked through but there was a new sort of determination straightening his spine and he told her that they had so much shit, he’s sure that some of it is left.

After she busted the door down, she made Jonas wait while she walked through the house to make sure they were the only ones here. She was glad to find that they were and even happier when she didn’t find any corpses oozing into the carpet.

For a moment, he just stares into the disarray that the house has fallen into. Silja doesn’t know what it looked like before but she doubt it was anything like this: windows busted in, carpet torn up, couches torn open and bleeding cotton across the floor. A few strange items were left, a table that looked to be made of glass, a wide, black screen with a crack down the middle, an assortment of books with thick, glossy covers.

She’s drawn to the wall. There is a picture hanging from it, similar to the one that Jonas showed her all those months ago of his family. However, this one is bigger and grander, almost taking up the whole wall. The mother is beautiful, with the stately sort of face that you do not see anymore. The father is dignified, with a furthered brow. Then, the boy from the picture of Jonas and Martha. He looks older here, with longer hair and sad eyes. Silja’s surprised by the way her breath catches in her throat as she looks at him. A strange current shoots through her spine, almost like recognition but not quite. 

“Is that Bartosz?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at Jonas. He nods. Silja finds herself looking at the picture again and there is a thrumming beneath her breastbone. Similar the the one she gets, whenever her and Jonas’s eyes meet.

“Why are you staring at him like that?” Jonas asks and when Silja looks away, she feels heat climbing up her neck. 

“He’s better looking than I thought he’d be. From your stories,” she remarks, stiffly. A strange expression passes over Jonas’s face that she’s never seen before and he turns away from her like she did something wrong. She follows him into a room with tile floors, that’s already been torn apart. He rustles through the debris on the floor with desperate hands.

“What’re you looking for?”

“Batteries.”

Silja raises an eyebrow. It’s a word she’s only heard a couple times before. He traces the shape of a small cylinder in the air. “They’re for powering electronics. My mom kept ours in the kitchen,” he says, kicking the trash around with his boot.

“What do you need them for?”

“My Walkman,” he says, a little too quickly. He spends a few more moments scanning the floor before deciding there’s nothing to be found there. She follows him out of the kitchen and down the hall, which is decorated with more pictures of Bartosz: him as a baby, chubby-cheeked and sweet, him as a boy, hair slicked back and eyes mean. 

“What’s a Walkman?”

Jonas’s neck stiffens. “Something you use to listen to music. Can you stop asking me questions and help me look?”

Jonas takes the bottom floor and Silja the top. She wanders into a room that must have once been a bedroom, with posters on the wall and the tattered remains of a bed. On the wall, there is another screen, just as big as the one in the living room. After some time, she realizes that this must be Bartosz’s room and she cannot deny the thrill of excitement she gets at the idea of looking through the belongings of a rich, handsome teenage boy. 

Most of the room has been picked over but she takes her time looking through his drawers. She blushes when she realizes she’s groping around his underwear drawer and lets out a yelp of surprise when her hand comes into contact with cold glass. She pulls it out to reveal of bottle of amber liquid. She unscrews the top and sniffs. The stench of alcohol stings her nose and she immediately closes it.

It’s hard to find something when you don’t really know what it looks like. Silja pours over the whole room, trying to find anything that resembles these things called batteries. Instead, she finds more alcohol, a stash of moldy cigarettes, and a few filmy, wet magazines that are filled with pictures of scantily clad women. When Jonas comes up the stairs, she’s flipping through one of them.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing!” She throws the magazine across the room. Tries to look casual when she turns to face him. “Have you had any luck?”

He shakes his head. She notices the way his shoulders have begun to slope once more with despair. “Have you found anything?”

“Mostly just alcohol. Did your friend have a drinking problem?”

Jonas lets out a snort and walks into the room. She watches him as he looks around, taking in the remnants of his lost friend. The way a ghost of a smile flits over his face. “No, he was just a shithead,” he says, taking a seat on the floor. Silja realizes he’s using the orb light and then, belatedly, that that must mean the sun has gone down.

“We should probably sleep here tonight,” she says. He nods and leans against the wall. Anticipation sticks in Silja’s throat, sharp and prickly. She usually tries to prevent this from happening. Keeps one eye on the movements of the sun so she and Jonas are never in the same circumstances they were during that night all those months ago. But, she had been so caught up in unraveling the mystery of Bartosz that she had gotten careless. 

Jonas leans over and grabs one of the bottles of liquor. To Silja’s surprise, he unscrews the top and takes a swig. A sharp twinge of longing stings at her insides as she watches him wipe his mouth on the back of his hand. He gestures at her with the bottle. “You want some?”

She takes it from him gingerly. She’s only drank a handful of times, whenever she’s been on watch with Asher and the other boys. When she finally manages a swallow, she’s unprepared for the way it burns her throat. Unable to stop herself, she starts coughing until the taste has left her mouth. Jonas laughs and she glares at him, embarrassment radiating off of her ears.

“You don’t drink?”

“Elisabeth’s forbid it. She says it will distract us from the prophecy.”

Jonas rolls her eyes and she tries not to be hurt by it. In all their time together, he’s made no secret of his disdain for Elisabeth and her religious fervor. Especially now that he’s exposed to more of it. Thankfully, he hasn’t been around to witness any hangings or Silja’s role in them. 

“Does Elisabeth let you do anything?” he says and there’s an edge of mocking to his voice that makes her skin itch with embarrassment. 

When he hands the bottle back to her this time, she takes a bigger swig and tries to enjoy the way it fills her chest with stinging warmth. Outside, she can hear the ever-present rhythm of bombs exploding and machine guns firing. The remnants of the German military must be fighting each other again, for control of one area or another.

“Fine. It’s not like we have anything better to do,” she says, laying down on her back. Already, the alcohol is going to her head. Distantly, she hears the part of her with sense screaming at her, telling her that this is a terrible idea. But, then Jonas lies down next to her. They’re separated by a few inches of stained carpet. When he passes her the liquor again, his fingers brush against hers and they linger long enough that she wonders whether it was an accident. 

She pulls some jerky from her pocket and nibbles at it. Hands some to Jonas, because she knows he has trouble remembering to eat sometimes. For a while, they just drink and eat, until Silja’s head’s gone swimmy and her tongue has loosened. She turns to face him.

“If we had met in 2019, do you think we would’ve been friends?”

Jonas tilts his head so he can look her in the eye. There’s a new redness to his cheeks and when he speaks, it’s louder than usual and a little sloppy: “like, if we went to the same school?”

She nods. It’s a fantasy she’s been indulging in more often lately. Every single time he tells her a new story, she files it away for safe-keeping. Tries to see where she might fit into it. It’s hard, trying to imagine a version of herself that isn’t littered with scars, filthy with terrible memories and horrible deeds. A Silja who is loved for who she is, not what she can do for other people.

Jonas scrunches his brow like he’s thinking real hard. “I don’t know. I think you probably would’ve found me annoying, like you do right now,” he says with a hint of a smile. She pushes him in the shoulder.

“I don’t think you’re annoying. Or, at least, I don’t anymore,” she says. Immediately, she feels like she’s betrayed too much and she chases her admission with a large swallow of alcohol. 

“You still think I’m useless.”

She lets out a snort. He has a point.

“Were you also useless in 2019?”

“As much as any 16 year old was. You probably wouldn’t have been like that. You would have been an overachiever. And, everyone would probably be scared of you because you’re mean and pretty.” 

His words light a fire inside of her, the one she’s been snuffing out every single day, in the hopes it will keep her from wanting him again. “I’m not mean,” she says, with an indignant sniff, which she knows is a ridiculous thing for her to say, a teenage girl who’s killed at least 50 men and been party to the deaths of so many more. She turns her head to look at him and he does the same. Her heart stutters in her chest and, as much as she knows she should, she can’t look away.

“You’re at least a little mean,” he says, not without an edge of teasing. “But, not in a bad way.”

“What do you mean?”

Jonas brow furrows. When he breathes out, she can taste the alcohol on his breath. “I just know that, deep down, you’re a good person. A kind one,” he says and his words hit her straight in the chest.

“No one has ever called me kind before,” she murmurs, almost to herself. His words flutter around her ribcage, making her lightheaded. She notices then how close their faces are, barely a breath between them. 

She knows she should pull away. The last time, she had not known what would happen. This time, she cannot claim ignorance. She knows him now, in all the ways that hurt. He doesn’t look away from her and she wishes he would. One of them needs to put a stop to this and she knows that she’s not strong enough to do it.

“Silja,” he breathes. She can hear the end of his sentence without him saying it. It’s a plea for reason. Unable to help herself, her hand finds its way to his face. At her touch, his eyes flutter close and he presses himself into her touch. She feels his loneliness then, dark and syrupy. She thinks of him, falling asleep every night, in the corpse of his family house, always breathing in its rot. Dreaming that he can save himself from the darkness that he’s fallen into. 

“Do you ever think about what happened? That night, after the rain?” 

For a moment, his eyes sharpen with pain. Then, a nod. She swallows a barb-wired breath. “I do too,” she says in a small voice because it’s the smallest version of the truth.

She doesn’t know which of them starts the kiss, only that once it’s begun, she knows there’s no stopping it. It isn’t the clumsy, soft-mouthed embrace they shared that first night; no, this is something darker, wilder, formed in the fire of their drunkenness and his despair. 

They are not gentle to each other nor are they kind. There is a desperate sort of fury in the way they pull their clothes from each other’s bodies, a mindlessness in the way their limbs tangle together. After a few breathless moments that remind Silja of a fist fight, she pulls him under her. Delights in the way his eyes go wide when he sees her straddle him. 

She’s never been this bold before, she thought she didn’t know how to, but something about the alcohol and Jonas had awakened something deep inside her. Experimentally, she rolls her center against him, letting him feel how wet she is. 

“Shit,” he groans, his body quaking beneath hers. “Quit being such a tease,” he says without any real heat and she laughs, small and bright. A laugh that belongs to a careless girl, who lives a perfect life, without nuclear waste or soldiers turned cannibals or lost boys who always broke your heart. 

She bends down to kiss him so she can taste his hunger for her as she sinks down onto him. Her body stutters a little with the stretch of it. He presses his fingers to her and rubs at her until there’s only the edge of pain when she lifts her hips again. It takes her a few moments to get the hang of it but, before long, they find a rhythm, fast and punishing. Jonas grips her hips so hard that she knows she will have bruises tomorrow the shape of his fingers.

“Please, Jonas,” she whines, in a voice that sounds so unlike her own. His eyes flicker with something darker than lust and, for the first time, she wonders what his pain is doing to him, what monster it might turn him into one day, when he realizes how futile this all is: Martha, stopping the apocalypse, saving everyone. He reverses their positioning, pulling her body underneath his. Something gets wedged between her back and the carpet but, she doesn’t care. Her world narrows to a pinprick as he drives himself so deep inside her, she can feel it in her teeth.

She knows that nothing about this is good. She can feel it, deep in the pit of her. But, their bodies make a strange sort of sense together. He holds her in place and takes her apart, until she’s trembling and mewling and ruined. Fucks his tongue into her mouth as her pleasure overtakes her, pulling her deeper and deeper into the dark of him. She knows it’s drunkenness that makes him kiss her so sweetly when he comes, but that doesn’t keep her from falling for it. 

She lets herself have this, the few lovely moments before everything turns rotten, his heart beating against hers and his hand intertwined with hers. Until the weight of him forces whatever’s underneath her into her shoulder. She sits up abruptly, throwing Jonas to the floor.

“What did you do that for?” he groans, reaching for his clothes. 

Silja rolls her eyes at him before reaching behind her to find what pinched her spine. When she brings it to her face, she realizes she has no idea what it is. Black and plastic, with raised rubber along the front. “Sorry, this was digging into my back,” she says, though she isn’t that apologetic. For a few moments, she turns the object over in her hands. “What is this?”

“Remote,” he says. She stares at him blankly. “It’s how you control a TV. Change the channels and stuff,” he adds, pointing at the screen.

She turns over the object in her hand again and stares at the television. Tries to imagine what it would be like, to see have a window into a whole new world in your bedroom. Suddenly, something dawns on her. She looks up at him. “So, this is an electronic?”

He nods. She can tell he’s getting a little frustrated with her but, she has a feeling he will get over it. With nimble fingers, she looks for an opening and finds one: a notch at the back. It takes her a few seconds to figure it out, but once she does, she’s rewarded with two metallic cylinders. She dumps them into her hand and holds it out for him to see.

“Are these batteries?”

Jonas’s eyes go wider than she’s ever seen them. He reaches out and takes them from her. His hand is shaking a little. “First rule of scavenging. Nothing is ever where you think it should be,” she says, not without a bit of pride. She puts her clothes on quickly. “There are probably more of them here. We just have to look,” she says, hopping to her feet. She reaches for his hand and pulls him to his feet.

When they’re face to face again, he’s wearing the biggest smile she’s ever seen and it hurts her heart a little. They gather up every remaining battery in the Tiedemann home, until the moon is high in the sky and their heads thump with the beginnings of a hangover. Once Jonas’s pack is full, they decide it’s time for sleep. She opens the door to the master bedroom with her rifle and is surprised to find it relatively clean, apart from some rags spread across the floor and the a few moldy empty cans. “Let’s sleep here,” she says and he agrees. 

She pulls her spare sleeping bag from her backpack and unzips it so they can share. It’s warm enough that she decides to sleep without her boots and pants on and he does the same. When they slip beneath the covers, there’s little room to spread out. She’s surprised when he reaches out and pulls her to his chest, like she’s something precious. He presses another thank you into her hair, even though she told him to stop at least an hour ago. 

“Instead of thanking me, you should just promise to get better at doing things yourself,” she says. She feels his responding laugh against her back and it makes her feel impossibly warm. 

“Fine. I promise,” he says. In the distance, Silja hears a bomb, probably the hundredth tonight, go off in the distance. She barely notices, so caught up in the rhythm of their breathing. Within a few moments, he falls into a drunk’s deep sleep and Silja feels herself following him. But, just before her eyes fall closed, a terrible question needles at her: why was he so happy about the batteries? 

*

Her dreams are forgettable, the sort she used to have before Jonas came into her life. Nonsense imaginings of her daily life, interspersed with things she’s read in books. None of them are connected, except for a buzzing noise, sharp and piercing, that seems to haunt her every move. When she wakes, it’s still her ears and, at first, she reasons that it must be her hangover.

But, it doesn’t abate, no matter how much she rubs at her eyes and her ears. She sits up. Beside her, Jonas is snoring, drool caked to his face. She looks around, heart pounding in her ears. When she sees the drone, one of the smaller ones, buzzing right near the Tiedemann’s window, she becomes so terrified that her next breath leaves her mouth as a scream.

“Jonas!” she yells, shaking his shoulders. His eyes open slowly and he glares up at her. “C’mon, we need to go,” she says and she jumps out of the sleeping bag and grabs her rifle. Her body is clumsy and when she shoots at the drone, she misses. “Shit, shit, shit,” she curses as she watches it fly away. When she turns around, Jonas is staring at her, his hair rumpled with sleep.

“What’s going on?” he says, rubbing at his eyes. She grabs his clothes and throws them at him. Puts hers on with shaking hands. She doesn’t answer his question until they’re both dressed and they’re flying down the stairs, his hand clutched firmly in hers.

“That was one of the military’s drones,” she says. “They know there’s only two of us. They only attack when the numbers are on their side. They’re probably on their way here now.”

Finally, he grasps the gravity of their situation and she takes no pleasure in the way his body tightens in terror. She kicks out one of the windows and slips out of it into the backyard. The second they’re outside the house, she hears the roar of their jeeps, flying down the road. 

Panic seizes her chest as she stares into the trees surrounding the Tiedemann estate. She doesn’t know this part of town as well as the others; it’s close enough to the Dead Zone that she usually avoids it. Jonas must sense it; he reaches out and grabs her hand. “C’mon, I know somewhere,” he says and she has no choice but to follow him. 

They run as fast as they possibly can. Above them, Silja sees another drone, tracking them. “We should try to lose it in the city,” she yells and Jonas agrees. They fly down Winden’s ruined roads, past fallen power lines and abandoned cars, through overgrown backyards and abandoned homes that stink of death.

Thankfully, they shake the drone by the time they’re in the forest again. Silja knows they cannot slow their pace for a second and when Jonas starts to slow, she pulls on his arm so hard she knows it must hurt. “Where are we going?” she hisses, looking back over her shoulder. The drone will find them again soon; the forest is too destroyed to protect them. Just when she think her heart is about to give out, Jonas stops in front of a pile of branches. 

“What’re you doing? They’re right behind us!”

He doesn’t say anything. Instead he pulls back a collection of branches and opens a steel door. “Get in!” he yells. Silja has no choice but to do what he says. With trembling hands, she climbs down the stairs and into the dark. Jonas follows and shuts the door behind them. Once he’s beside her, he turns on the orb, illuminating the space in front of them.

The room in front of her is dank and dingy, littered with old machinery, electronics, and trash. Across one wall hangs a mismatched collection of photos, with Jonas at the center. Webs of string shoot out from each picture, following a logic Silja doesn’t understand. On the other wall, there is a map of Winden, with some areas colored in. Against the farthest wall, there is a work-bench, covered with different pieces of machinery.

“What is this place?” She says, wandering further inside. A sick feeling wraps its way around her. She remembers Elisabeth talking about a place like this. A room in the dark, where an evil, old woman lived with a sad, lost man, who stole children for sport. She told Silja to run away if she ever saw anyone who fit that description. 

“It’s a bunker. This is where I travelled to, from 1986,” he says, setting his pack on the ground. He walks over to the corner and turns on another light. “I couldn’t find it, for the longest time. Everything looked so different at first. But, the day after…” he trails off, leading her to draw the cruelest conclusion. “Well, you know, I decided I wasn’t going to sleep until I found it. It took almost a whole day, but I did it. I think whoever lived here before, they had traveled through time, like I did. They were trying to stop the apocalypse too.”

She watches as he empties his pack of batteries onto the desk. Beside him sits a grey device that she’s never seen before. He pops off the back and pulls out two cylinders that she now knows to be batteries. The sick feeling deepens, sinking into her stomach. “I found these tapes. They talk about a way to get back to the past. A way to fix everything and stop the apocalypse. I was listening to the one about it when the batteries died.” 

Silja’s blood goes cold. “You lied to me,” she says, taking a step away from him. Jonas turns around. He can’t look her in the eye and, somehow, that makes everything even worse.

“I didn’t think you’d help me if you knew the truth,” he says. She can’t deny the sense in that, but that doesn’t make his betrayal hurt any less. She clenches her fists and her nails pierce the tender skin of her palms. The pain is a welcome distraction from the terrible swirl of emotions filling her chest.

“This is blasphemy, Jonas. If Elisabeth finds out I helped you…fuck, if she ever finds out that I came here, with you, I will be hanged, right alongside you.”

His brow twists with torment at her words. He takes a step toward but she takes one back, so her back’s against the wall. “I know. I really am sorry, Silja. This was the only way. You know I couldn’t find them by myself. You said it yourself. I’m useless,” he says, with a humorless laugh. “Besides, that doesn’t have to happen. You could come with me, to the past. I think that’s where you’re supposed to be, anyway.”

Silja’s eyes go wide. Her heart is pounding so loud that she can’t hear herself think. “What do you mean? I belong here. With Elisabeth. This is where I fit. That’s what she told me,” she says and she cannot keep the tremor out of her voice. Her hands are shaking again, the vibration pulling at her bones. 

“You said it yourself. You don’t belong. My papa…” he trails off, looks away from her, to the wall of pictures. He points at a small boy with wide-set eyes. “He was from my time. We grew up together. But, when in 2019, something went wrong and he was brought back to the past and everything got all fucked up. I think you’re like him. Someone who’s somewhere they shouldn’t be.”

His words shatter something deep inside Silja. She doesn’t know what it is, only that its essential to her standing upright. She slides down the wall with the weight of her terror. Jonas’s words swirl around her heart but she refuses to let them in. They are the words of the faithless and if she lets them infect her, she will die, like so many else have. Tears sting at her eyes and she rubs at her eyes with stubborn hands. 

When she looks up, Jonas is crouching in front of her. He places her hand on his knee. It’s the pity in his eyes that upsets her the most. She slaps him away and rises to her feet. 

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” She screams. Her words vibrate through the bunker. “This is where I belong. With Sic Mindus. We are the future. Adam has chosen us. We will go through the passage and we will be in Paradise. Just like the prophecy said,” she says but she can hear her conviction wavering. 

Anger comes off Jonas’s body in waves. If she did not know him better, she would be scared of him. When he speaks, it’s with a voice she barely recognizes. “Your prophecy is shit. Just like everything else Elisabeth tells you. It’s all lies, Silja. How can you not see that?”

Fury fills every inch of her. She remembers how much she hated him when she first saw him. A stupid, no good boy, with too soft eyes, who stood no chance in the wasteland. She is the only reason that he is still able to draw breath. The amount of times she saved him from himself, the tender way she held him in her heart. She let him fuck her twice, even though she knew the whole time that he was in love with a dead girl. All for this. She should’ve known better. Or, she did know better, but knowing didn’t make any fucking difference.

“You’re going to die here. A faithless, selfish fool. And, when you cry out, I won’t be there to save you.”

Without another word, she climbs up the ladder and out of the bunker. Slams the door shut as hard as she can. The sun is setting. For now, the drone is gone. Silja pulls up her mask and readies her rifle. She walks back to the caves, free of fear and, for the first time, she understands the comfort of welcoming death, instead of running from it. 


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao, remember when I said this was only going to be three chapters? Well, now it's 4 (but it's definitely going to only be 4), because this chapter was starting to get too long. I apologize for this chapter taking so long - I wanted to rewatch seasons 2 + 3 to make sure I got all the details right (though, I'm sure there's still something I'm missing - this show is so complicated!!!). This chapter focuses on Jonas and Silja going to the Dead Zone and the aftermath. There isn't much about the post-apocalypse era between June 2053 and September 2053 so, similarly to the other chapters, I made some probable assumptions that are hopefully not too out of step with canon. Thanks to falafelfiction and Bubulona for commenting and to everyone else for reading!!
> 
> Next chapter will (finally) cover the lead-up to Silja going to the 1800's, including interactions b/t her and Adam, her and Agnes, and also her and Alt!Martha. I'm really excited to write this chapter and to wrap this thing up!

It’s not rare, for a memory to come to Silja in the inky dark of night, one that she’s buried deep down. She’s seen more terrible things that she can count, the sort that split your mind open and turn your heart inside out. She’s gotten good at forgetting the worst ones but, ever once in a while, they crawl back to her, awoken by walking down an unfamiliar path or smelling a certain sort of rot. 

The night after Jonas shows her the bunker, she goes to bed early. At first, she’s greeted by darkness and she prays that this will be a dreamless night.

But, it does not last. Suddenly, she’s pulled into something warm and textured, so vivid that it must be real. Her body is small, her hands soft, her hair braided down her back by Elisabeth’s careful hands so it doesn’t get tangled. She must be seven or eight and already thirsty for freedom. Elisabeth is tending to one of Sic Mundus’s garden plots on one of the precious spits of land untouched by radiation. She told Silja to stay put but something pulls her away, toward the thick of the forest. 

In her wandering, she comes across a man. She’s never seen him before. He isn’t military, Elisabeth told her those monsters all wear camouflage, and his clothes are worn and tattered like everyone in Sic Mundus. He’s emerging from a hole in the ground. His face is worn and bearded, with sad eyes, and when he sees her, they widen. 

She feels like she knows him somehow. And, from the way he’s looking at her, he must know her too. With a gloved hand, she waves at him, big and friendly, until he waves back.

Before she can open her mouth to ask who he is, she’s pulled back by a furious Elisabeth. Silja is too young to keep up with Elisabeth’s hands when they’re moving quickly but she knows from the sharp line of her adoptive mother’s mouth that she’s angry. The man doesn’t put up a fight, he goes back into his hole, his eyes even sadder than they were before.

_I told you to stay away from him,_ Elisabeth signs, pulling on Silja’s shoulder so hard it hurts. It’s only when they get back to the garden that she realizes that Elisabeth is crying. 

*

Silja’s world returns to a dismal sort of grey that she had grown accustomed to before she met Jonas. She relearns the old rhythms of her life, what it’s like to move through your day without anything to look forward to. Tries to find pleasure in the limited good that’s offered to her, fresh roasted rabbit with fat dripping off the bone, the light in Elisabeth’s eyes when Silja translates something well, the camaraderie of Sic Mundus, the promise of Paradise.

But, Elisabeth’s tracts on prophecy and salvation no longer feel right in her mouth. Try as she might, Silja cannot shake Jonas’s words from her bones and they’re turning her rotten. Worse, she doesn’t even have the strength to let him starve to death, even though he deserves it. She starts to leave rations at the tree they always used to eat at together and whenever she comes back, they’re gone. 

She’s never hated him more than she does now. The way he’s taken away everything she used to hope for. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have nothing. To be broken down, bit by bit, every day, until there’s nothing left but a stubborn wish to survive that doesn’t even feel like your own. This is what she’s reminded herself, time and time again, every time that his words ring through her ears like the military’s explosives. But, then she remembers his offer and not even the light of Paradise compares to the way it makes her feel. Try as she might to forget it, she can’t.  


Every morning, Silja tries to find the path back to the girl she used to be. But, by the time the sun is high in the sky and the rest of Sic Mundus is awake and bustling around her, she’s reminded that she no longer knows the way. 

She sees Jonas sometimes. Snatches of yellow, weaving in and out of the crowd. Elisabeth calls on him when she hasn’t seen him in a couple days and wants to make sure he’s still alive. The sight of him, dirt-covered and hopeless, pokes at her gut like a hot knife. 

Thankfully, he’s never around for long and she tries her best to ignore him. He makes it hard, sometimes, when the words Elisabeth’s put in her mouth are especially blood-soaked and god-heavy. Almost as if he’s daring her to break free, to say something different, something closer to his truth. She wonders if he can make out how far he’s gotten under her skin. The way that every thought of Paradise is now twisted with doubt.

The Frenchmen are the first execution in a while and she can tell that Sic Mundus is hungry for it. They’re wearing strange suits that look like they’re from a better future than the one Silja’s stuck in. 

She hadn’t been on watch the night they’d been caught but she was woken by her comrades’ screams of triumph as they dragged them back to the caves. After a hanging, Elisabeth is generous. She lets them all eat more than their normal share of food and turns a blind eye to the consumption of alcohol.

The Frenchmen are wearing strange suits that look like they’re from a better future than the one Silja’s stuck in. Silja tries to pick up the meaning beneath their words but, all she can find is fear. When Elisabeth finally appears, emerging from the forest behind them, she raises her fist and everyone goes quiet. Silja watches as the condemned are fitted with their nooses and strung up. Thankfully, they surrender to death without much fanfare. 

Silja has done this enough times that her body is able to follow the script without her mind’s participation. She dons the mask of her old self easily, it’s one of the few things she still has left. The words move through her like Elisabeth is possessing her body. They’re the same as they’ve always been: passage to the Dead Zone is forbidden and the punishment is death. 

“Sic mundus creatus est!” 

The crowd repeats it back to her. For one moment, she feels a flicker of her old faith, fragile and small but still alive. But, as soon as Elisabeth parts the crowd to reveal Jonas, it disappears. First, she sees his eyes, the terrifying sort of determination they hold inside them. She hadn’t noticed him while she was translating. She swallows and follows Elisabeth as she walks toward him. 

When Elisabeth asks him where he’s been, she knows what she’s really asking and Silja wonders if she has the stomach to watch Jonas die.“There’s nothing out there. Our only hope is in the passage. Those without faith are already dead,” she translates. Her voice wavers over the last couple words because she knows that they’re the most hurtful. “The prophecy will be fulfilled. The passage will open and lead us to paradise.” 

“Those without faith are already dead? They’re all dead, my family, my friends. Everybody dies! In my time, in six days. I don’t need your fucking paradise. I just want to go home.”

Silja winces, reminded of their confrontation in the bunker. How terrible they were to each other. She’s replayed the last words she’s said to him, over and over again, until her heart’s gone sour with self-hatred. She wishes she had meant them. Most of what he says is directed at her so she doesn’t translate for Elisabeth. But, when he turns to the older woman and asks her what’s behind the wall, she has no choice. 

Elisabeth says nothing. But, Silja sees the desperation in Jonas’s eyes become something more certain. He walks away from them. Silja lets herself watch him go, if only because she knows that this will be one of the last times she sees him alive. 

*

She asks to be removed from watch that night. When Elisabeth asks why, she says that she must have eaten something rotten. She can tell Elisabeth doesn’t buy it, but she asks Asher to cover for her all the same. Even though she goes to bed early, sleep evades her and she spends the whole night, replaying her conversation with Jonas, over and over again, until his fury bangs in her chest like a second heartbeat. 

Sometime during the part of night that’s almost morning, she hears the sounds of people coming back to camp late. She recognizes Asher’s voice, amongst the others who patrol he edge of the Dead Zone. The dread that’s been floating through her chest, nebulous and formless, solidifies and she gets out of her sleeping bag and goes to where they’re talking, crowded around the fire.

“What’s going on?” she asks. When Asher turns to her, he’s wearing the worst sort of smile.

“Your stray has gotten himself in some trouble,” he says and the others, ones whose names she used to know, before her world was swallowed up by Jonas and her dreams of the past, snicker. “We saw him. Sneaking out of the Dead Zone.”

“If you saw him, why isn’t he here, with you?” she says, trying to hide the tremble from her voice. 

“Oh, did Elisabeth not tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Asher laughs and it’s a cruel sound. “She says that she wants to be there when we catch him.”

Elisabeth emerges from the cave, drawn out by the noise. _What happened?_ she asks, as she advances toward them. Silja lifts her hands to answer but before she can, Asher cuts in. In Silja’s absence, his sign language has gotten better. _We saw him._ _Leaving the Dead Zone, just a couple hours ago._

Elisabeth’s face turns dark with a fierce sort of conviction. _We will create a perimeter. So, the next time he slips through, we’ll be ready._

Silja cannot feel her body. She’s experienced this before, when she’s witnessing something she already wants to forget. A storm of emotion beats at her insides but she cannot let it overtake her. When Elisabeth turns to her, it takes every ounce of strength she has to hide the torment from her face.

_Silja, you will join them,_ she says. _No excuses this time,_ she adds, before Silja can refuse. She remembers Elisabeth’s promise from a couple months ago, when she agreed to let Jonas eat their food.

_If he steps out of line, it’ll be your job to bring him to me._

*

Their truck vibrates with his kicking and screaming the whole way to the gallows. Silja sits up front and tries to ignore it, but it proves impossible when he says her name. She can feel Elisabeth eyes on her when it happens. Testing her, trying to see if she’s going to break. She keeps her gaze fixed to the road ahead of them. The Sic Mundus faithful are already waiting for them, their eyes bright with blood lust. They haven’t had two executions so close together in a long time and Silja can feel their excitement in the air when she gets out of the truck. 

She tries to forget the way his face looked when she pointed her gun at him. The bare fear of it, the betrayal. A terrifying impulse had taken hold of her then, to shoot them all so he could escape. But, as soon as she realized that meant hurting Elisabeth too, the plan fell apart.

Asher drags him to the gallows. With practiced hands, he loops the noose around Jonas’s neck. Pulls at it, until he’s forced to stand on the wooden beam below. Silja watches. Tears sting at the corners of her eyes and she can feel her rifle shaking in her hands. She knows there’s nothing that can be done. This is the only way any of this could have ended, she realizes that now. She was never meant to escape here, never meant to be anything more than a monster.

She remembers how much she hated him when they first met. The way he used to get under her skin, with his recklessness and lack of self-regard. It is strange now, to see tears fall from his eyes as he’s faced with the absolute certainty of his demise. That, beneath all of that suicidal bravado, he’s still just a teenage boy, desperate to get home. 

Her thoughts are interrupted when by the focused heat of Elisabeth’s gaze upon her. When she looks at her adoptive mother now, she sees nothing that she recognizes. She turns to Jonas. The hopelessness in his eyes make her trip over her words: “you know the rules. Do you think they don’t apply to you?” 

“Why are you lying?”

Silja’s eyes widen. She sees fear in Elisabeth’s eyes as she advances toward him, fear of what he might say. He doesn’t stop, words pressed through his mouth like bullets out of the mouth of a rifle: “why don’t you tell them what’s really in the Dead Zone?”

When Elisabeth takes aim with her rifle, Silja sucks in one terrible, razor-edged breath. Elisabeth’s aim dips lower and she takes a shot at Jonas’s leg. His scream is too much for her ears and she pulls her eyes away like a coward. It doesn’t matter, his cries of pain shake at her ribs. 

“In five days, in my time, everybody’s going to die. I have to stop that,” he yells. Silja watches as Elisabeth steps closer to him, rage radiating off of her body. There’s something strange and terrible about the expression on her face, the pain and fear heId in it. “There’s no prophecy! The passage will never open. Your paradise is nothing but lies! But, behind the wall-“

Elisabeth kicks the wood out from underneath him and Jonas begins to choke. Silja looks away. She isn’t strong enough to watch him die. She pinches her eyes closed and tries to pretend she’s somewhere else. Her mind wanders to the night they spent at the Tiedemann house. The way his face looked, lit up with drink. The warmth in his eyes, when he called her a kind person. Then, how he betrayed her. Used her, for the way she cared about him. Her anger and love for him twist themselves tight around her heart and she wonders how she will learn to live in the world without him.

Silja’s eyes snap open when she hears the sound of Elisabeth’s rifle once more. Jonas falls from the gallows, breathless and bloodied, but alive. Silja blinks, unable to believe it. For one terrible moment, she thinks she’s imagined it, but, Jonas sucks in another ragged breath. She looks from him to Elisabeth and back again as she struggles to make sense of this sudden act of mercy that goes against the truth that she’s wrapped her whole entire life around. 

Jonas is bound and gagged once more. She watches as he’s taken to the caves, her pulse rattling sharp and mean through her whole body. She turns to Elisabeth, whose stare is fixed to the gallows. 

_Why?_ Silja asks, with shaking hands. Elisabeth glances over in her direction. Regards her like she would a stranger. The tears that have been threatening to fall from her eyes sting at her raw skin. She signs again, saying the words this time. Elisabeth turns away. Anger, jagged and true, sings through Silja’s blood and turns her reckless. It makes her reach out, pull on Elisabeth’s shoulder until she’s forced to look her in the eye.

“No one goes to the Dead Zone and lives. No one. Not even the people who end up there by mistake. They all die. And, you make me tell them that they’re going to. Ever since I was a little girl, you’ve been making me sentence people to death,” she says and signs, her fingers struggling to keep up with her mouth. “Why does he get to live? Why?”

Elisabeth stares at Silja for a long time. For a moment, terrible and small, Silja sees the woman who raised her, hiding in the white of her eyes. But, it doesn’t last. Elisabeth pulls Silja’s hand from her body with a rough swipe of her hand. 

_If you question me again, I’ll have you put in the cage next to his._

Without another word, Elisabeth disappears into the forest, leaving Silja alone with the gallows. 

*

She knows where he’s been taken, she’s taken prisoners there herself more times than she can count. Normally, the militia members sent to guard him would be more of a problem, but everyone appears profoundly shaken by the botched execution. When she gets back to the camp, she sees them all, muttering to each other in timid whispers. None of them notice when she slips into the cave and reemerges, carrying a lantern identical to the one Jonas carries, whose origin he’s always refused to explain to her. 

She reloads her gun with ammo and then sets off for the dungeon. Careful to avoid drones and her fellow Sic Mundus followers, she moves slowly. By the time she reaches the mouth of this set of caves, dark has eaten up half the sky. She slides behind one of the nearby trees to wait until she has the cover of night.

The weight of the events of the past 24 hours pull heavy on Silja’s shoulders. She hasn’t slept since she heard Asher talking outside the cave, over a day ago. She ate some food on her walk over but, she hadn’t eaten in since the previous evening’s dinner so it did little to soothe the gnawing ache of hunger. Not to mention, the chaos of her mind as she tries to make sense of what’s happened. 

So much has been taken from her. Silja thinks about the way Elisabeth looked at her, after she asked her those questions. Like they were nothing to each other. All because of Jonas. She’s reminded of how Elisabeth asked her to protect him, when he first arrived. How defenseless he had been, wandering around the forest, begging for death. She’d never understood how protecting him was taking them closer to Paradise but she did it anyway. 

Silja waits until she sees the guards start to get tired, sloppy. They’re both teenage boys, who Silja helped train. Young, inexperienced, and easy to intimidate. As soon as they see her emerge from the forest, they stand up straight and lift their rifles to attention. 

“Elisabeth sent me to take over for you.”

“Really? I thought she wanted us to stay here all night,” the older one says. 

“She changed her mind. Are you really questioning Elisabeth’s direct orders?” she says and hard edge of her voice makes both of their eyes go wide. 

“No, no, of course not. We’ll leave,” the younger one says and he pulls angrily on the other’s sleeve until he nods in agreement. 

She feels a little bad as she watches them slink into the forest, shoulders stiff with terror. But, before she can feel too guilty, she remembers that she doesn’t have much time. She turns on her light and heads into the cave.

Nothing prepares her for the sight of him, small and pitiful, hunched in the back of the cage. She has to stiffen her upper lip to keep from crying out, raise her eyebrows to keep her face from falling. She cannot let her guard down, not yet. Not until she’s sure of his role in all of this. Elisabeth did not look upon him like she would a stupid teenage boy who was causing trouble; no, there had been a depth to her fury that felt larger than that singular moment, larger than all of them. It’s made Silja wonder what other secrets Jonas might’ve been keeping from her, during these months she filled with him and only him, letting the rest of her life rot. 

When she gets closer to him, his eyes widen and she can’t tell if it’s with fear or hope. She tries to solve the puzzle of him for the millionth time and, like always, she comes up blank. After everything that’s happen today, she has lost her patience. She lifts her gun with trembling hands and points it at him. He presses himself to the back of the cage like a beaten dog. 

“Why didn’t she kill you? Who are you, really?” she asks. He doesn’t say anything. “Tell me now,” she pleads and she cannot stop the desperation from bleeding into her voice. 

Jonas is shaking. Blood stains the parts of his pants that aren’t already ruined with dirt. She could shoot him. She could shoot him and that would fix whatever’s been broken between her and Elisabeth, she’s certain of this. She could shoot him and she could forget all about him, just like she’s forgotten about so many others. Her finger jitters on the trigger. It would be easy. One of the easiest things she’s ever done.

When she set out for the caves, she hadn’t really known what she wanted, only that she needed answers. But, the longer she looks at him, the more she remembers. Silja lowers her gun. He is just a boy, one who she’s been keeping alive ever since he stumbled into her life, wide-eyed and lost. A boy who looked into her eyes and called her kind. A boy who once promised to save her from all of this and help her find where she really belongs. She knocks the lock from his cage with the butt of her rifle, just like she knocked him into the dirt the first time they met. 

“So show me, then. What’s really in the Dead Zone?” 

*

They move slowly, weaving between trees and the paths that Sic Mundus follows on patrol. Jonas is always lagging behind her, the beam of his orb casting her shadow in front of her. She offers her arm to him once she sees what bad shape he’s in but he shakes his head and continues on his own. “That’ll just slow us down,” he insists and she knows from the grit in his voice that there’s no arguing with him.

He only lets them take a break once they’re close. He sits on a the trunk of a felled tree, agony etching lines into his forehead.

“I don’t know why she didn’t kill me,” he says, his voice so quiet that she barely hears him.

“What?”

He looks up, finding her eyes. Their faces are both lit by the eerie glow of their identical lanterns. “That’s the reason I didn’t answer you. Not because I’m keeping anything from you. I really don’t know. Everything I’ve told you about who I am, where I come from, it’s the truth,” he says. 

Silja swallows. When she looks him in the eye, she sees the Jonas who held her face in his hands like she was something precious that first night they spent together; she knows then that he isn’t lying to her. 

He tries to straighten his leg and grits his teeth with new pain. She offered to bandage the wound, after she helped him out of the cage but, of course, he refused that as well. Looking at him hurts but she knows she deserves it so she doesn’t flinch away. 

“I’ve never seen her like that before,” she says, taking a seat on the log next to him. Her muscles ache with fatigue and her stomach groans with hunger but she knows they cannot stay still for long. Her shoulder bumps into his and she can feel the heat of his blood, sticking to her clothes, but neither of them seem particularly bothered by their closeness.

Jonas lets out a snort. “Really? That didn’t seem out of character to me,” he says. She watches as his fingers trace the angry necklace of blood that’s wrapped around his neck. 

“She’s been different ever since you got here,” she says, staring at her hands. Suddenly, Elisabeth’s threat from earlier that day flashes across her mind’s eye, brutal and sharp. “She’s always been…” Silja trails off, trying to find the right word. “Devoted to the cause. To reaching Paradise. But, lately…” her voice sticks with her throat. “I always thought I mattered to her. More than the others did. She raised me. Took care of me. Taught me everything. But, I don’t think she’ll forgive this.” 

Jonas doesn’t say anything because there isn’t anything to be said. Instead, he reaches out and grasps her shoulder in his hand. When she meets his eyes, she sees warmth in them and she cannot believe she ever thought that she’d be happier with him dead. 

“I’m sorry for what I said to you. In the bunker,” falls out of her mouth before she can stop it. Jonas is good enough to look away then but his hand stays on her shoulder. The forest sighs around them as wind blows through the trees.

“It’s okay. I kind of deserved it,” he says and she sees a hint of a smile, pained as it is, peaking out from the dirt and blood that covers his face. “I knew you didn’t mean it,” he adds, quietly, and the sentiment held in his words pulls her ribs tight. She places her hand on the one that’s resting on her shoulder and squeezes.

Before she can offer to help him, he attempts to lift his body from the log on his own. His leg goes slack beneath him and Silja leaps to her feet to catch him, wrapping her arm around his middle. His body is warm and solid against hers, an unexpected comfort. She only lets him go when he insists. “We should get going. We’re almost there,” he says and she lets herself dream then of this new salvation, delivered by a ruined boy with a broken heart. 

*

As they get closer to the Dead Zone, a strange feeling begins to eat at Silja’s insides. The gutted carcass of the power plant looms large over them and she finds an unexpected comfort in its shadow. Almost like she’s felt its cold before. But, she knows that can’t be true; if she’d ever gotten this close, she would’ve been taken to the gallows just like Jonas was. 

Still, logic does not beat the thought back; if anything, it makes it stronger. By the time they enter the factory, every step feels like one she’s taken in another life. Jonas is quick, his every movement sharpened with adrenaline. He only stops once they’ve reached an intimidating set of doors with yellow suits sitting against the wall.

“Put that on. It’ll protect you from the radiation.”

Silja does as he says. Her shaking hands make it difficult. When she struggles with the helmet, Jonas reaches out and helps her secure it on her head. Checks every juncture of her suit, to make sure it’s properly sealed. “Is it dangerous?” Silja asks, her fear echoing off the plastic face shield. Instead of responding, Jonas opens the door. 

The room in front of them is more like a chamber or a crypt, filled with the bones of the power plant. In the center sits a shifting, chaotic black-blue orb. At the sight of it, Silja’s stopped still. She doesn’t know how, but she feels like she’s seen this monstrosity before, in the same life with the dream mother. The one that she can only access when she’s asleep. She’s pulled closer and closer until Jonas catches her shoulder. 

“Stay here, I’m going to try to stabilize it.”

Jonas pours gasoline into the machine and turns it on. “What is that?” she asks. 

“She said that it’s a portal.”

“Who?”

“Tapes of a woman talking. Her name is Claudia Tiedemann. I know it sounds crazy. But that could be our way home. I don’t know if it works,” he says and she can hear the hope lift his voice. She lets herself hope too, her insides lit up with the promise of a new home, one where she really belongs, with Jonas. It’s almost enough to make her brave in the face of this new, terrible thing. 

He throws a lever. Suddenly, the orb solidifies. Silja’s breath catches in her throat. She watches as Jonas walks closer to it. When she realizes what he’s about to do, her fear rises up in her throat, mean and burning like stomach acid. “You’re going in?”

“Whether I die out here or in there, it doesn’t matter.”

He reaches out and touches the portal. Blue light envelops his arm. He pulls it free. For a moment, she thinks he’s seen sense. But, instead of turning around, he walks into the orb and it swallows him whole.

“Jonas!”

Before she can even consider walking in herself, it changes form, becoming the chaotic mess of energy that she saw when she first walked into the room. Silja falls back, terror ricocheting through her chest. 

She stays there for a while, praying for Jonas to return. Long enough that every joint in her suit begins to itch with sweat, the humid stink of her breath filling her nose and making her sick. Eventually, the last of Silja’s hope evaporates and she realizes that he’s never coming back.

*

Despite their argument at the power plant, Elisabeth insists that they walk back to the caves together. _It’s not safe to be alone. You know that,_ she signs. Silja storms ahead of her, so Elisabeth can’t say anything else to her. The sun is still high in the sky when they leave the power plant, the wind cold and rough against Silja’s face. 

In some ways, she knows she should be grateful. Elisabeth did not drag her to the gallows as soon as she found her in the Dead Zone nor did she make good on her threat to throw Silja in a cage if she ever questioned her again. Still, that does not soothe the ache of losing Jonas or finding out that her adoptive mother has been lying to her ever since she came into her care.

The anger she feels is bigger than her body. She throws her feet at the ground like she wants to hurt it, digs her nails into the flesh of her palms so she can distract herself with pain. Whenever she hears the rustle of Elisabeth behind her, her fury reignites and each time it happens, it gets harder and harder to swallow.

Once they reach the edge of the forest, Silja’s had enough. She spins around to face Elisabeth. She barely recognizes the woman before her: broken and wrong. When she tries to meet her eyes, her adoptive mother quickly averts her gaze. 

_Why didn’t you tell me the truth?_ she signs. Elisabeth’s face fractures even more. She shakes her head and starts walking again. The fury in Silja’s body throws her hand out to grab Elisabeth’s shoulder, sharp and pressured. Holds it tight in her hand, forcing Elisabeth to look at her. 

_Tell me. Or, I’ll leave._

The threat causes her fingers to shake. She’s surprised by how much she means it, how little she cares for her own life now. What’s the point, without Paradise, without Jonas, without hope? Elisabeth’s eyes go wide and she yanks Silja’s hand from her shoulder and grasps it tightly in her hand. 

_I didn’t want to lie to you, Silja. I had to. Adam told me it’s the only way to ensure that the prophecy is fulfilled. The God Particle, it needed to be kept safe. And, you had to be kept safe too. He told me it had to be done by any means necessary_ , Elisabeth replies. For a moment, Silja almost feels guilty about the way Elisabeth’s hands are trembling with emotion. But, then she remembers and her anger comes storming back, more acerbic than it was before. She pulls her hand from Elisabeth’s grasp with such force that the older woman stumbles back a step. 

_Why does it matter what Adam wants? Paradise is a lie._

Elisabeth’s eyes go cold. She takes a step toward Silja and Silja takes one back. Her pulse hammers at the side of her neck. For a split second, Elisabeth looks just like she did when she shot Jonas in the leg. But, before fear chokes Silja’s throat, she softens. 

_Silja, I may have lied to you about the Dead Zone but I’ve never lied to you about Paradise._

_How can you expect me to believe you? Did you ever care about me at all? Or, did you just do it because Adam told you to,_ she signs. Tears sting at the corners of her eyes and she tries to blink them away, stubborn as ever. But, Elisabeth must notice and Silja feels her hand on her shoulder, soft and motherly, like when Silja returned to camp after the first night she spent with Jonas. 

_Adam never told me that I had to love you. He brought you to me. After I had lost everything. Noah, Charlotte, they were both taken from me. But, he gave you to me and he told me to raise you. I tried not to care for you, Silja. Those first few months, the wound of losing Charlotte - it was too much to bear._ Elisabeth’s hands stutter for a moment, her eyes pained. When she looks up at Silja, there are tears in her eyes. _But, you were so good. And, so smart. You learned sign language so quickly, I barely had to teach it to you._

A storm of emotions floods Silja’s chest. Jonas was right. She doesn’t belong here, she was taken from somewhere else. Suddenly, the dream of the man with the ruined face crystallizes in front of her, becoming real for the first time. A man that must have been Adam. 

She doesn’t remember the circumstances that led to their meeting, only that she was brought to him by her mother. There was a conversation between the two of them that Silja watched with confusion. Mama seemed to know him and she kept saying a name to him over and over again, a name that sounded different than Adam but that Silja cannot remember the sound of it. 

She remembers that Mama had been upset, that after they were taken to their room by the tall man with kind eyes, she had cried. Silja tried to stop her from crying but she was just a child and there was only so much she could do. The man, who kept looking at her like he knew her, gave them dinner and fitted the beds with fresh linens. When he said goodnight to her, his eyes had become sunken with sadness and Silja remembers asking her mother if they knew him. Mama explained that he had been a friend of her brother’s and it was the first time Silja had heard that she had a brother at all.

That night, she had fallen asleep easily. Traveling had taken a lot out of her and the bed was soft and warm. At one point, she remembers the door opening but she fell back to sleep shortly after. Then, the man with the ruined face, Adam, he lifted her into the air and she woke up fully once when she was in his arms. He told her to be quiet and she listened. He was the first person to hold her that wasn’t Mama but, there had been something familiar about the smell at the nape of his neck so she let her head fall upon his shoulder. 

What followed next is still murky. First, a big room, one of the biggest Silja had ever been in. She couldn’t see what it was front of Adam but she could hear it, pulsing and chaotic. He told her to hold onto him, tightly, and then, together, they were swallowed up by the dark. She had gotten scared, but he told her everything would be okay. Suddenly, they were somewhere else and it was cold. Adam put her down. They walked for a while, until they came to a cabin where a woman was crying. Her sobs had reminded Silja of Mama and she pulled on Adam’s jacket and asked where she was. 

“That doesn’t matter anymore. This is Elisabeth. She will take care of you,” he had said. The woman named Elisabeth had not been happy to see them. She screamed at first, her words intelligible and strange. Adam took out a pen and paper then and he wrote on it for a while. When he gave it to Elisabeth, it calmed her immediately. Silja watched as her anger melted into something softer, sadder. She looked at Silja then and took her hand. 

She doesn’t know when she started crying; only that, now that she’s started, there’s no way to stop. Elisabeth wraps her arms tight around her, like she used to after she woke up from one of her nightmares, when she was too young to put herself back to bed. Nightmares of Adam. She only lets go of her once her tears have slowed to a trickle and she’s able to breath without getting choked with sobs. For a while, they stand there in silence, the only sound the wind whistling through the trees.

_Do you know who she was? My mama? Do you know where I came from?_ Silja asks. Elisabeth looks away from her and she knows then that she won’t get the answer she wants.

_That’s not for me to tell you,_ she signs. Before Silja can raise her hands to ask again, she grabs her hand. _No more questions. We need to get back to camp,_ she signs. Silja considers trying to pull her arm out of Elisabeth’s grasp but, suddenly, the weight of the past two days of not sleeping or eating hits her and it becomes a struggle to stay up right. Elisabeth catches her before she falls and they walk the rest of the way arm-in-arm.

Once they get closer to camp, some of Silja’s strength returns to her and she pulls herself upright. For a moment, she lets herself look at the woman who raised her. She was so beautiful when Silja first met her, with long hair like spun gold and a face like an angel’s. But, time is not kind to anyone at the end of the world, and like so many things, Elisabeth has been ruined. There’s still beauty to her, though, clinging to the hope that swims in her eyes, just as stubborn and strong as the day Silja first met her.

_How can you still believe? After everything that’s happened? After everything you’ve seen? How can you still think Paradise exists?_ Silja asks. 

Something too sad to be a true smile spreads across Elisabeth’s face. _Because Paradise is all I have left._

*

The camp she’s returned to no longer feels like home. Her fellow members of Sic Mundus, their faces ashen and grave, no longer look like comrades. When she translates for Elisabeth now, she feels like the bluntest sort of instrument, created only for one purpose, and she never lingers once it’s done. 

Elisabeth has regained her hold on Sic Mundus by promising that Jonas’s disappearance was part of the prophecy. She tells them that Adam told her, when he visited her all those years ago with Silja in his arms, that he would come when the prophecy was close to being fulfilled. Then, he would deliver them all to salvation. It’s a pretty story that Silja almost lets herself believe sometimes, in the mornings when hopelessness sits the heaviest on her chest. 

She spends most of her time on her own. Sometimes, she wanders through the forest, flirting with the idea of going back to the Dead Zone to see if Jonas has returned. But, even now that she knows what’s there, knows that Elisabeth won’t kill her for looking for it, terror still eats at her bones when she thinks of the God Particle and the way it felt, standing beneath its chaotic, cold shadow. Besides, for all she knows, Jonas was killed by it.

Or, he’s with Martha. Usually, once her thoughts begin to circle that drain, she’s pulled away from the Dead Zone, to the opposite side of town. She only realizes she’s heading to his old house once she’s almost there. It’s only been a handful of days since he left but she’s found herself her at least three times, each time almost like she’s been possessed.

She only goes in the third time. The door falls open as soon as she puts pressure on it. It looks more lived in than the last time she was there. A few dishes sit on the table and she sees the burlap bags that she placed his rations in every couple of days spread across the floor. 

She searches for the picture Jonas showed her of his family, all those months ago. She remembers looking at it made her feel strange but she’s never been able to figure out why. But, when she goes to its spot on the wall, above the calendar, it’s nowhere to be found. This upsets Silja more than she expects it to and she kicks the wall, causing the calendar to fall to the floor. 

Something crueler than nostalgia draws her up the stairs to his bedroom. When she opens the door, she holds her breath. Almost as though she expects him to be on the other side, smiling in that soft way of his, here to take her to the home he promised her. But, there’s no one on the other side and the air in the room is stale.

Similarly to the lower floor of the house, Jonas’s bedroom looks like he was there just a moment ago. His bed is unmade, the sheets askew and wrinkly. Clothes litter the floor and there’s a wet towel, beneath her feet that’s gone sour-sweet with mildew. 

Silja finds herself drawn to the bookcase. The last time she was here, it was too dark to make out the titles on the spines. Using her orb light, she looks across the shelves and finds an assortment of school books and classic literature, with the occasional comic book or glossy-covered fantasy novel thrown in. 

She picks up one of the textbooks first. When she flips to the first page, it’s filled with numbers and symbols that she doesn’t recognize. After a few moments of confusion, she realizes that they must be equations. Elisabeth hadn’t been able to teach her math beyond the elementary, she’d stopped going to school at age nine, after all. 

Silja takes a seat on Jonas’s bed as she flips through the textbook. A brutal sort of sorrow takes over her and she can’t tell what she’s mourning, only that she knows it’s something that she’ll never have. 

She lifts the book so she can take a closer look at one of the equations and, suddenly, tatters and scraps of notebook paper fall out of the back. Silja lifts them to her face, studious and stern. The handwriting is sloppy and slight, worse than hers. Each of them have Jonas’s name written somewhere and, after a few moments, Silja realizes they are notes, like the ones she’s read about in the few books she’s found about high school. 

After a few moments, she figures out that most of them are from Bartosz. His handwriting is worse than Jonas’s, which is saying something, and he seems to initiate most of the exchanges. Most are silly, talking shit about the teachers or whether they’re going to hang out after school. Occasionally, Jonas says that he’s planning on doing homework and Barotsz always tells him to fuck off and just come over and play video games. She finds herself smiling as she reads each one, imagining the handsome boy from the portrait at the Tiedemann’s, scrawling these foul words on scraps of notebook paper. 

There are others that are neater, with crisp, curly letters that flow into each other like water, each of them signed with the letter “M,” floating along the bottom of the page. Martha. Silja’s stomach goes sour and even though it hurts, she keeps reading. Martha’s notes are more formal, kinder, inquiring after Jonas’s mother, how things are at home. “Did you have a good time in France?” one asks, and Jonas wrote a series of words beneath hers then crossed them out, over and over again. 

She stays there for too long, until the sun’s dipped beneath the horizon and she has no choice but to spend the night. By the time she’s read every remnant of Jonas’s life as a normal teenager, including some asides from Magnus, mostly about where to buy drugs, she’s sunk into his mattress. It smells like him. She presses her face into his pillow and takes a deep, hungry breath.

In sleep, she’s pulled back into the room with Mama and Adam. Ever since this memory came to her, fully formed, her mind’s been playing it on a loop, over and over again whenever she closes her eyes. Almost like it’s trying to tell her something but Silja can’t quite figure out what. She feels her mother’s grasp on her hand, cold and clammy. She hears her mother’s voice and all that rings through is desperation wrapped around a name. Silja tilts her head, trying to make it out, her day self melding with her dream one. While it may had been unknown to her then, the shape of it is familiar to her now, just barely legible through the swirling dark of time.

When she wakes, she tastes the edge of it on her tongue. Not enough to make out all of it, but enough to shake her insides with a sick sort of uncertainty. “No,” she mutters to herself as the edge of the cruelest, most terrible thought digs into her side. 

_Not him._

*

When she walks back to camp, the world seems darker than before, the air colder. She moves quickly, trying to outrun the dream she had in Jonas’s bedroom that suggested a truth so vile that she knows it cannot be true. But, often, hope wears the guise of knowing. It pretends to be more certain than it is, you wouldn’t believe in it if it didn’t play this game with you. She knows this better than anyone.

By the time she gets close to the caves, Silja feels a frenetic energy in the air and it makes her back go stiff. She hears a woman’s voice but cannot recognize who it belongs to. When she gets closer, she sees a crowd, gathered around the mouth of the caves, bigger enough that she can barely see who’s talking. She weaves in between Sic Mundus faithful, trying to find her way to the front.

First, she sees Elisabeth, her smile bright and luminous, so big that it takes up her whole face. She is signing rapidly, her hands struggling to keep up with her mind. But, the person translating for her isn’t anyone that Silja recognizes. She’s an older woman, with short hair and a stern face. 

“Paradise has come!” the woman calls out. Silja can hear the hesitance in her voice, her confusion about how exactly these words fit together. “When I lost everything, Adam promised me that there would be an end to my suffering. Our suffering. He promised me that, one day, I would be able to see my mother again, that I would one again hold hands with my sister. He promised that there would be an end to our pain.”

Silja pushes through the crowd more forcefully, trying to get to the front. There are others, behind Elisabeth and the older woman, she can just make out the black of their coats. “And, today, that end has come! My mother is here,” the older woman calls out and Silja watches as Elisabeth reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. For a moment, she’s stunned still. She watches with wide eyes as Elisabeth presents her mother to the crowd. They all bellow and cheer. “She’s here to help deliver us to Paradise. And she is not alone.”

After a few sweaty moments, she finally reaches the front. Beside Elisabeth stands another older woman, this one with long hair and a softer face, wearing thick, old-fashioned clothes. Elisabeth stops signing for a few moments to grab her hand and lift it to the sky, while her mother catches up: “my sister is here too. She almost died in the apocalypse. But, Adam, saved her, like he will save all of us.”

The man with a ruined face emerges from behind Elisabeth and her family. He’s flanked by two people who are similarly dressed, a younger woman with dark hair and an older man with a wizened, sad face. Silja’s heart stutters in her chest. An audible gasp ripples through the crowd. A woman in front of Silja falls to her knees, prostrating herself on the ground. Others follow suit, until Silja’s one of the few people left standing. 

“Adam has come and he is here to lead us through the passage and into Paradise!”

“Sic mundus creatus est,” Elisabeth’s sister calls out and everyone repeats the words back to her. Silja’s surprised to hear her saying them herself.

Elisabeth lifts her fist and Sic Mundus disperses, leaving Silja nowhere to hide. Elisabeth barely notices her, so caught up with her real family, leaving her alone. Adam must see her then. 

“Silja, there you are. We were wondering when you would join us,” he says as he walks toward her. The older man and woman with dark hair hang back but Silja can feel their eyes on her, especially the woman’s. 

She tries to pull words from her mouth but none come out. It’s strange, being near the man she’d always thought was a monster born of a child’s imagination. There’s an unsettling glossiness to his face, where flesh has been tore away and then healed over so many times it’s stopped looking like skin. His eyes are the only part of him that looks human, deep and blue. As she looks into them, Silja swallows her terrible dream-born thought down once more. 

“Do you remember me?” 

She nods. 

“Good. Elisabeth told me that you’ve been having doubts. About Paradise. Is this true?”

Fear constricts Silja’s throat. She glances around, desperate to see a familiar face but she finds none. Adam’s still staring at her. “I…Jonas…He told me it was all lies,” she mutters, her voice small like a child’s. A strange and unexpected almost-smile spreads across Adam’s face.

“I see. Jonas is gone now, correct? You saw him disappear into the God Particle?”

Silja nods again. “You must be wondering where he went. If he might return,” Adam says. He must see the answer to his question in her eyes, the bare hope at the very suggestion of Jonas coming back. “What if I told you that he has returned? And, that he now believed the very things that he railed against when you last saw him? Would that restore your faith?”

Her heart hammers at the walls of her chest. She looks around, searching for Jonas, but he’s nowhere to be found. “Where is he?” she asks and Adam takes a step closer to her, so she has to look him directly in the eye. The memory she’s been hiding from bursts past the defenses she’s erected to protect herself and for the first time, she lets herself hear what Mama called Adam, all those years ago, while she was grasping Silja’s hand.

_Jonas._

“I’m here, Silja," he says and she falls to her knees. 


	4. Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao, so, obviously it's been a while. Super sorry for the delay; for the past couple months, all my writing time has been taken up on grad school applications but I am finally done with them! So appreciative of your patience, comments, and kudos! :-) Also, as you might have noticed, this is not the last chapter. While I initially had hoped that this fic would only be 4 parts, the last section took on a life of its own so I decided to cut it in two. This chapter focuses primarily on Silja's relationship with Agnes and takes place between July and August 2053. The next will cover the time between Agnes leaving and Silja going to 1890. Since there isn't much known about this period in canon, I had to make probable guesses and hope what I came up with makes sense. The next chapter is already halfway finished so I'm hoping to have it up within the next couple weeks.

Adam wastes no time in putting them all to work. There is much to be done, he tells them, as they all gather around the fire. Elisabeth stands behind him when he speaks, her back straight and her face resolute. Her mother, on the other hand, doesn’t seem too sure. She usually stands at on the edge of the crowd, her arms crossed across her chest. Franziska translates for Elisabeth now, so Silja often finds herself there as well, with just a few feet between her and Elisabeth’s mother.

“We must gather supplies to keep the God Particle stable. Through it, we will be able to reach Paradise,” he explains, his voice thundering through her chest. Sometimes, when Adam is speaking, she can see a flicker of Jonas in his eyes, and those are the moments that she feel closest to the girl she used to be, one with unshakable faith and a spine made of steel. _See? He was lying, even though he didn’t know it then,_ she thinks to herself whenever she remembers Jonas’s blasphemy from the bunker. Words that would never come from Adam’s mouth. 

Still, despite her renewed belief, Silja feels uneasy around Adam and the new arrivals from Sic Mundus. She’s heard Franziska call the older man Magnus, a minor character from Jonas’s stories but one who had intrigued her all the same. The man before her is so different from the boy she’d heard about, reckless and loud and cocksure. Nor does Franziska fit the picture Jonas had painted of her, fiery and headstrong. Old age and hardship have turned them grey and mellow. Sometimes, she sees them go on walks together, hand and hand. 

Every once in a while, she catches them looking at her in a strange sort of way. She assumes it’s because of what Elisabeth must’ve told them. Besides, their stares are nothing compared to the dark haired woman who trails behind Adam, wearing the resolute face of a soldier. She overheard Adam calling her Agnes and he seems to keep her in close confidence. They’ve yet to meet formally but every once in a while, the back of Silja’s neck itches and she turns to find Agnes’s watchful eyes waiting for her. She always looks away as soon as Silja catches her.

Elisabeth is too busy with her real family to pay Silja much mind. Whatever other friendships she used to have with her fellow cultists withered while she spent all of her time with Jonas. This loneliness is new to her and difficult to bear, so she throws herself into scavenging. She is still the best at it and she takes a special sort of pride when she brings back water bottles full of gasoline and presents them to Adam for inspection. “Good work, Silja,” he says and even though his words never quite met his eyes, she still feels warmed by them and the small bit of Jonas she can still hear in his voice.

It’s been a couple of weeks since his arrival and Silja’s let herself fall into this new normal. Days are spent searching for fuel or whatever other machinery Adam might require, nights spent shoveling down dinner and then going straight to sleep. She sets out right at sunrise, so she doesn’t have to see anyone.

One day, she runs into Adam outside the caves just when light has begun to leak through the trees. “Good morning,” he says and her heart stutters in her chest. His face is always a shock to her, especially when she remembers it belongs to Jonas. _You used to be so beautiful_ , she finds herself thinking and she immediately hates herself for it. She bows her head in deference and repeats his greeting back to him.

“I was wondering if you would accompany me to the graveyard.”

Silja swallows. “Of course,” she says. The corners of his mouth lift in something that’s only halfway suggestive of a smile and, together, they set out, Silja leading the way with her flashlight as the sun creeps over the trees.

For the most part, their journey is a silent one. Adam is always a few paces behind her. When she sees his limp, guilt licks at her insides and she forces her gaze in front of her. She remembers the warmth of his body against hers as they stood in front of the Dead Zone. The resolute set of his jaw as he stepped into the swirling dark of the God Particle. She hasn’t met many old people as it’s difficult to reach live long in a world that only knows death. She can't tell how old Jonas is now but it must be decades upon decades since he last saw her. She wonders how much of her he remembers. 

The initial relief of seeing Jonas, even in this old broken body, has begun to wear off. At first, she was so glad to be secure in her belief in Paradise and Adam that she was able to forget the loss of him for a couple of days. Once the edge of it dug into her side again, she told herself that serving Adam would fill the cavernous hole he had opened in her heart. But, she hasn’t seen Adam smile once since he arrived and even though Jonas did not smile often, during the last months, they spent together, she saw it often enough that she was able to memorize it and the way it made her heart go fluttery.

_What happened to you?_ she asks an imaginary Jonas who wears the face she remembers. Since Jonas disappeared, she’d only been able to imagine two fates for him: death or a perfect life with Martha. She’d never considered this option where he doesn’t get anything he wanted. She remembers the stories that Elisabeth had told her about Adam when she was a child, that he had suffered more than any of them. That was why he had devoted himself to finding them a way out, to give all fo their suffering a purpose. It hurts, to know that Jonas is the one who had to bear this weight, but, at the same time, it makes perfect sense. He had always been infatuated with sacrifice. 

“I remember you being more talkative,” Adam says, startling her. Before she can open her mouth to apologize, he silences her with a wave of his hand. “No need. I know what little resemblance I bear to the Jonas you knew.” 

They reach the graveyard. The sun has peaked over the trees, lighting their way. Silja hasn’t been here since Jonas left. Sic Mundus has always buried its dead closer to the caves, on the land they considered holy. For years, she’d walked past these graves without the slightest idea of who they belonged to. Even though she took clothes from their closets, stepped over their corpses on her way back to the caves, the people who used to live in Winden always felt unreal to her. That is, until Jonas arrived and taught her all of their names. 

Perhaps what fucks her up the most is how Adam follows the same path that he did when he was that boy, snaking through the headstones with his hands behind his back. Like always, he comes to a stop Michael Kahnwald’s headstone. Silja watches Adam’s face for the same misery that would always tear Jonas’s face in two, but his expression does not change.

After a few moments, he bends to pick up something that’s sitting against the headstone. Silja takes a step closer and sees that it’s the picture Jonas showed her of his family. The one she hadn’t been able to find when she revisited his house the day Adam arrived. A strange feeling strings itself between her ribs and she takes another step closer, until her and Adam are shoulder to shoulder.

“I was such a fool then. So unwilling to see the truth that was staring right at me.”

“What do you mean?”

Adam lets out a humorless laugh. He passes the picture to Silja. “I had wondered then why you looked so familiar to me. Why you stared at this picture for so long. But I know now that the answer had been right there in front of me, the whole time,” he says. Her chest tightens. “Look at it again. Tell me what you see.”

For one moment, it’s just a picture and her fingers quake with frustration. But, before she can ask Adam what she’s supposed to be looking for, everything clicks into place. The dream mother’s face becomes clear to her, sharpened by Silja’s new memories. The picture falls from her fingers and she falls back, her body shaking with terror.

“No, no, no,” she mumbles to herself, shaking her head. Adam watches her calmly, his hands in his pockets. 

“Your mother is Hannah Kahnwald. She was my mother as well. That is who brought you to me. I knew then I had to take you here.”

She says her mother’s name to herself, trying to make sense of the way the letters feel on her tongue. Hannah Kahnwald. She picks up the picture so she can look at her face again, trying to find herself in it. Traces her fingers along her smile, the waves of her hair. She’s just as beautiful as Silja’s always imagined.

“But, Jonas and I…” she starts to say but disgust keeps her from being able to string the words together. Tries to banish the memories of the nights they spent together, wrapped in each other’s bodies, running from their twin despair. The special fire that his attention stoked in her. She has never known the exact name for what she felt for him, only that it shook at her insides and tore at her heart until she was willing to risk everything for him. Something worse and more fatalistic than love, a current strong enough to pull her away from Elisabeth and everything she had believed with frightful strength.

“You’ll be surprised by how little of that any of that matters. You, myself, Hannah, Elisabeth, Charlotte, Franziska, Magnus, Agnes, we’re all connected. Working together, playing our roles, in order to get closer to Paradise. And, your role isn’t complete yet, Silja.”

Before she can question Adam, Silja hears a rustling and the words die on her tongue. She unholsters her rifle and turns to face the intruder. When she sees it’s the woman with dark hair, she lets the gun fall, cheeks pink with foolishness. “What’s she doing here?”

“This is Agnes. She’ll walk you back to the caves,” Adam says. He reaches down and looks at the picture of Jonas and his parents for a few moments before pulling it from the frame and tearing it in half. The wind takes it from his hands. Without another word, he walks in the direction of Martha’s grave, leaving Silja alone with the woman named Agnes. 

Tears sting at the edges of Silja’s eyes but she refuses to let them fall in front of this stranger. Like always, Agnes is staring and it makes Silja’s heart hurt. “What’re you looking at?” she spits. Agnes winces like she slapped her. 

She pushes past her, her disquiet pushing her body forward with a startling amount of speed. Her thoughts are a jumble, brutal flashes of the woman she now knows to be her mother, Hannah Kahnwald, and the pale bright of Jonas’s chest, pressed against her body. For a moment, nausea rattles her insides and she feels bile building at the back of her throat. Thankfully, she’s able to swallow it down. From a young age, she’s learned how to repress her urge to vomit, not wanting to waste any food, even if it was rotten. 

Worse is the strange sense of grief for a life that wasn’t even hers in the first place. In her memories, the face of the dream mother was always blurred, too indefinite for Silja to develop a definitive connection to her. But now that she knows what she looks like, the image of her seared into Silja’s memory with the intensity of her anguish, her longing for her sharpens into the sort of thing that hurts.The same mother who Jonas was always talking about getting back to. Who he risked everything to save. Again, bile knocks at the back of her throat and when she swallows it down, it takes far more effort. 

She doesn’t know what to make of what Adam told her, that their shared parentage doesn’t particularly matter. The only taboo that still exists at the end of the world is incest and it’s one Silja never thought she’d have to worry about, given the fact she had no idea who her family was in the first place. Not to mention Adam’s assertion that all of them, even her and Agnes, are connected. Silja racks her brain, trying to figure out what that could possibly mean, how she could have anything to do with this woman that she’s only just met. She looks over her shoulder only to see Agnes trailing behind her at a respectful distance. When their eyes meet, she sees a new sadness in them and Agnes quickly looks away, almost as if Silja is the one who caused it. The thought makes Silja’s pace slow as shame leeches into her bones. 

Eventually, Agnes catches up with her. Once she’s close, Silja turns to her. “I’m sorry for snapping at you,” she says. Her words startle Agnes. When she looks at Silja, there’s a wetness to her eyes that confuses her. What reason does this women have to cry about anything she says to her? They barely know each other. 

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she says and her voice is so certain that Silja has no choice but to believe her.T hey get stuck in silence once more, but it’s more comfortable than their previous one. Silja has forgotten the security that comes with walking alongside another person in the forest. Even if you don’t know them that well or even like them, the constant threat of danger has a way of making you walk closer together, of finding comfort in the sound of the other’s breathing. Her shoulders no longer tense with aggravation whenever she feels Agnes gaining on her. She is one of the first people who’s able to keep pace with the frantic way Silja moves through the forest and they take most of their steps almost in unison. They fall into a pleasant sort of rhythm, weaving through the trees in tandem. 

Once they are close to camp, Silja’s neck itches with apprehension. The feeling of being watched. She holds up a hand to Agnes to tell her to stop moving. Presses a finger to her mouth so she knows to be quiet. Agnes nods, her eyebrows raised. For a few moments, they stand still in the rustling quiet of the forest. 

Right when she’s about to let her guard down, her ears itch with the faint buzz of one of the military’s drones. She reaches out and grabs Agnes’s jacket and pulls the both of them behind a tree. _Look,_ Silja mouths, dropping her hand from the other woman’s shoulder and pointing at the sky. Agnes’s shock quickly morphs into resolve after she looks up and spots the drone. Thankfully, it is one of the larger ones that can’t dip beneath the tree cover. After ten minutes or so, it gives up, buzzing off in the direction of the military base.

“Thank you,” Agnes says, her voice cracking a little.As much as she appreciates Agnes’s gratitude, the weight of it makes her feel uneasy. She waves it away with a blush.

Silja is reminded of Jonas and how he used to tear through the forest, without concern for himself or anyone other than Martha. The way his mouth would twist into a grimace whenever Silja saved him from himself. She wonders if they would’ve gotten along, if they had grown up together, but it’s the sort of thought that cuts the more she thinks about it, like clutching broken glass.

“We should keep going. It might loop back,” she mutters, before taking off again. Agnes catches up with her and for the rest of their journey, they walk side by side, each taking turns to scan the sky for threats. Agnes is good at keeping watch, better than Jonas ever was. Silja finds herself soothed by the other woman’s presence, There’s something about her, in her eyes that has a whisper of familiarity, but Silja can’t place from where. Once they reach the edge of camp, she’s surprised by her disappointment.

“It was good to meet you, Silja,” Agnes says. Before Silja can respond, she walks away and disappears into the hustle and bustle of the Sic Mundus campground. 

*

She thought everything would make sense once she knew where she came from, but, she’s never felt more like a stranger to herself. In the morning, she traces her fingers over her face, trying to find the places where it’s similar to her mother’s. At night, memories dance across her eyes, each of them small and shattered but vivid. In one of them, Mama takes her coat shopping and buys Silja the prettiest, pinkest one. In another, Mama braids Silja’s hair while she watches pictures flicker across a screen. She circles the edge of the last one until waking, a walk to the park where an old woman calls her mother by name and makes her cry. But whenever she tries to grasp this memory in her hands, a biting pain cuts across her face and forces her awake. 

She tries to remember everything Jonas said about his mother. Unfortunately, his mentions of her were few and far between. She must have been a good mother, otherwise Jonas wouldn’t have cared so much about getting back to her, she reasons to herself, her mind floating above her body as she peels up floorboards and pockets their nails. While she siphons gas from Winden’s few abandoned cars that haven’t been sucked dry, she remembers he told her that his mother had been a decent cook, but not as good as his father. She was quiet and watchful and often nagged Jonas to put on a coat or wear a hat on rainy days. As she walks to the caves with a backpack full of metal, Silja tries to braid Jonas’s memories with hers, in hopes of creating a full picture of Hannah Kahnwald, but she always comes up empty, the version she’s created pale and emaciated and wrong. 

Once or twice, she’s considered asking Elisabeth what she might know but the thought makes her stomach hurt. Now that the memory of their first meeting has crystallized in her mind, she hasn’t known what to make of the woman who raised her and the secrets she kept from her. Besides, even if she got up the nerve to ask, it’s not like Elisabeth’s ever available to her. After years of eating all of her meals at Elisabeth’s side, she now finds herself drifting toward the edge of the fire, where no one will notice her. Spends the time she’s supposed to be eating staring into the dark of the forest, wondering what Adam has planned for her. 

“Can I sit next to you?”

Silja is startled out of her thoughts by Agnes. Flustered, she nods and scoots over so there’s room on the felled log. Agnes sits down. She’s wearing a thick coat that doesn’t look like anything Silja’s ever found in Winden’s closets. Not for the first time, she wonders where Agnes and the rest of them came from. Adam said that it was from the past but did not specify when. Yet another thing that she doesn’t understand and that no one wants to explain to her. Silja swallows down another thick mouthful of cold stew and grimaces at the sensation.

“Is it that bad?” Agnes asks with a smile. Silja’s cheeks go red and, for a moment, she’s terrified that Agnes’s mirth is at her expense, like how Jonas would sometimes laugh at her whenever she did something barbaric or crude, but there’s no malice in her eyes. There is a warmth to her that feels familiar to Silja somehow, but she doesn’t know how or why. Perhaps, it’s just because she’s lonely enough that this stranger’s presence has become a comfort to her. 

“It’s only good when it’s warm,” Silja replies. Still, she forces down another painful swallow. Even if it’s terrible, it’s still food. For a couple of minutes, they eat in silence, surrounded by the muffled dark of the forest. In the distance, Silja thinks she sees Elisabeth staring at the pair of them but she looks away before Silja can be sure of it. 

“Have you always lived here? At the caves?” Agnes asks, interrupting Silja’s thoughts once more. Ever since what happened with Jonas, most of Sic Mundus has been holding her at arm’s length. Watching her, trying to see what she might do. She’s gotten used to spending meals alone, her only conversations with people she might bump into on her way to bed or the occasional cryptic exchange with Adam. She doesn’t understand why Agnes might want to talk to her, why she cares about her at all, but there’s a softness to her tone, flimsy like hope. 

“Adam brought me here when I was young. I don’t really remember anything else,” she explains, picking at the edge of the log where the wood has become frayed and wet. Agnes’s eyes do not leave Silja’s once while she’s speaking, as if she’s digesting every word. It makes Silja uneasy and she refocuses her gaze on the rotting strands of wood.

“It must’ve been hard. Growing up in a place like this.”

“You get used to it,” she says with a shrug. Wet wood gets caught beneath her fingernails and she has to pick it out. In the distance, she hears the other members of Sic Mundus turning in for the night. Agnes must hear it too because she stands up. Before Silja can get up on her own, the older woman offers her a hand and she takes it. At the moment their palms meet, a jarring sensation knocks at Silja’s insides, just like the one she had looking at the picture of Bartosz all those months ago or when Jonas showed her the picture of his family. 

Silja pulls her hand away and, for a moment, she thinks she sees hurt pooling at the edges of Agnes’s eyes. Before she can ask after it, Agnes turns and starts to walk toward the fire. Silja trails behind her, clenching and unclenching her fist, trying to make sense of the tangle of emotion in her chest. Adam’s words from the graveyard sit at the edge of her thoughts, taunting her with everything that she doesn’t know. In the weeks following, nothing more has been made clear to her and her ignorance has become to grate at her. Especially when it seems like everyone else — Agnes, Adam, Franziska, Magnus, Elisabeth, and even Elisabeth’s mother — knows exactly what’s going on. 

In the distance, Silja sees Magnus and Franziska. They must be waiting for Agnes. The three of them usually spend their nights at the power plant with Adam, tending to the God Particle. Before they get too close to them, Agnes stops walking. She turns to face Silja, her expression strange and dark. But before she can speak, Magnus calls for her: “Agnes, he’s waiting.”

Agnes’s brow hardens with frustration but the second she turns to face Silja, it melts away. “Sorry, I have to go,” she says. She gives Silja a clipped, artificial smile. Then, she walks toward, Magnus and Franziska, her shoulders hiked around her neck. Silja watches as Magnus leans in close to her to say something. Apparently, Agnes doesn’t like whatever it is and she pulls away from him with a scowl. Franziska reaches out to touch Agnes with a comforting hand but Agnes walks away before it makes contact with her body. Together, the three of them then disappear into the mouth of the forest, leaving Silja alone in the dwindling light of the fire, a strange, new question taking form in her mind. 

*

At night, it’s hard to find a good place to sleep. The caves barely fit everyone in Sic Mundus and now, with their new arrivals, and Elisabeth’s mother has taken Silja’s spot. She’s been pushed toward the mouth of the cave, where she’s constantly woken up by rain and thunder or her comrades getting up to go take a piss. It’d bother her more if sleep was easier to come by, but she’s gotten used to only catching slumber in small snatches, the few precious moments when her mind stops churning.

It’s not rare for Magnus, Franziska, or Agnes to never come back at night. She thinks they must sleep at the Dead Zone, like Adam does. Silja cannot imagine finding any sort of rest in that wretched place. Even if Elisabeth announced that the rule had been lifted and travel to the Dead Zone was permitted, Silja always stops at the perimeter and lays whatever scrap metal she’s found at the edge. Adam sometimes meets her there and tells her what he needs next. Perhaps the only authority she has left is taking these messages from Adam to the rest of Sic Mundus so they know what to look for. Each week, his requests become more and more extravagant: sheets of glass, copper wire, light bulbs, strips of metal. Some members of Sic Mundus, the ones who’ve picked up enough mechanic skills that they’re able to maintain the trucks, spend all their time there, building the ark that will grant their passage to Paradise.

Today, she spent the whole day gathering up whatever glass she could find. Her mind wasn’t with her, it was in the past, with Jonas, remembering the way his smile felt against her skin. Neither of them knew the truth then. Sometimes, she wishes she could go back to not knowing. Deep down, she’d always felt like there was something wrong about the way their bodies came together but she had assumed it had been because of Martha or Elisabeth or just how fucked up everything was at the end of the world. More than that, something about him had made her willing to go against Elisabeth, the only family she’d ever had, and it made sense now, knowing that it had been blood. 

She dreads going to bed every night. Before Adam arrived, she’d been able to pretend that the nightmares that twisted her brain in the dark of night were just the product of an overactive imagination, nothing more. But now that she knows the truth, she’s terrified of what her mind might show her. What new truth it may reveal, gnarled and wrong. She can only hold off on falling asleep for so long and, once she does, she’s pulled into Jonas’s house, the first night they spent together, the way the edges of his hipbones ground into hers with every thrust. It’s a small mercy that she’s yanked from sleep by the sound of a group of people talking outside the cave.

Her body is covered in cold sweat. She glances around the cave, trying to figure out who’s missing in the dim light provided from the lanterns. From what she can tell, everyone who normally sleeps here is encountered for. 

Silja grabs her rifle. With steady hands, she advances toward the mouth of the cave, her mind flitting through the possibilities of who these intruders might be. Sic Mundus’s dominance of this corner of Winden is well established; scavengers rarely bother them anymore. The military has been quiet ever since Adam arrived, but she’s lived in this wasteland long enough to know that doesn’t mean anything. 

As she steps outside the cave, the voices grow louder and she sees three figures, standing near the fire pit. Once she’s closer, she recognizes Agnes’s voice and then Magnus’s. Another small figure stands between them who Silja knows must be Franziska. She lowers her rifle and sneaks up closer so she can make out what they’re saying. 

“Agnes, you’ve put this off for long enough.”

Silja cannot make out Agnes’s face but from the square line of her shoulders, she can tell that the other woman is on edge. “I just want a little bit more time,” she says. Franziska reaches out and places her hand on Agnes’s shoulder. “You know that doesn’t matter,” she says but there’s a tenderness to her words and Agnes doesn’t seem to fight them.

Silja is so caught up in eavesdropping that she accidentally steps on a branch. The three of them startle. Magnus waves a hand over his lantern and Silja’s caught in its light. All of their eyes widen when they see her. A sinking feeling pulls at Silja’s gut as she tries to guess what they might’ve been talking about. 

“Silja, we were just looking for you. Adam wants to speak to you,” Magnus says. Agnes’s face flashes with conflict. She opens her mouth, as if to say something, but before she can Franziska squeezes her shoulder and she falls quiet. Adam is not someone you keep waiting so she joins their group. Thankfully, she sleeps in her boots and her thickest coat every night so the early morning chill doesn’t bother her too much. 

They set off, Magnus and Franziska leading the way with their orb lights. Silja’s in the middle with Agnes bringing up the rear. No one says anything and there is something mournful about the way they walk through the forest in an inky silence.

Her heart quickens as they near the edge of the Dead Zone. Even though she knows she cannot get in trouble for following Adam’s orders, images of every man, woman, and child whose killings she’s been party to flashes before her eyes. She starts to fall behind, Magnus and Franziska disappearing into the dark. Before she comes to stop, she feels Agnes’s hand on her shoulder. 

“We don’t have much longer to go,” she says. When her hand leaves Silja’s shoulder, Silja still feels the weight of it and its warmth gives her the encouragement to keep going. The sun crests over the power plant, lighting up its spectral insides. 

The memory of the last time she got this close grips at her and she remembers the fierce hope in Jonas’s eyes, his offer to her. He had been right, after all. She doesn’t belong here but she’s starting to wonder if she belongs anywhere. A little over a month has passed since Adam told her she still had a role to play in their pursuit of Paradise but no one has told her anything. She’s begun to think that maybe she imagined it or maybe Adam realized there was someone better, like Asher or one of their more stone-faced warriors. 

The power plant is now full of scavenged metal and machinery, some of which she recognizes from her hauls. They follow the same path her and Jonas did, snaking through the ruins. Four yellow protective suits sit outside the door. They all pause to put them on. Once they’re all suited up, Magnus motions for her to follow them behind the door. 

The chamber that holds the God Particle has changed considerably since the last time she saw it. Instead of entering the cavernous hall, they’re funneled through a partially constructed hallway, that leads to a smaller room full of switchboards and levers, advanced, functioning machinery that Silja has never seen before. There is a window that provides a view of the God Particle, with glass paneling stretching across some of it. At the sight of the shifting, mercurial darkness, Silja’s heart speeds up. Adam comes into view, in the corner. Unlike the others, he isn’t wearing a suit.

“Thank you for joining us, Silja,” Adam says, his skin glinting in the dark blue light. It unsettles her, and she finds herself looking for the Jonas beneath the mask, only to find nothing she recognizes. Magnus and Franziska take up the space behind him, leaving Silja and Agnes in front. She glances at her, only to see Agnes’s head bowed, almost in deference. 

“What is all this?” She asks, gesturing at the half-finished structure around them. 

“This is our control room. It allows us to manipulate God Particle and harness its power. Otherwise, it may spit you out wherever it sees fit,” he says, gesturing to the panel of different gauges, levers, and dials in front of him. “When you watched me enter it the first time, I did not go to 2019 like I had hoped. Instead, I ended up in 1921.”

Silja’s eyes go wide and her heart aches for the boy who she watched get swallowed by the blue light. She knows that must’ve devastated him, ending up so far away from home. “Do you want to hear something strange?” he asks, turning to her. Like everything else that has happened this evening, she realizes that only one answer is allowed so she says yes, even if her gut has begun to churn with unease. 

“When I was there, I met a girl who looked familiar to me. I assumed that this because of how disoriented I was. How could I possibly recognize someone who was born long before me?” he says, running his fingers along the switchboard in front of him as he speaks. Letting himself be warmed by the radiation of the God Particle. His face is shrouded by something that almost resembles nostalgia but has a darker tinge to it. “Now, I know this is possible. Ask me how,” he commands. 

She glances at Agnes, Franziska, and Magnus. None of them will meet her eye. Silja’s forced to look back at Adam. “How?” she asks. Sweat has begun to collect at the joints of her suit and the inside of her plastic face shield is growing humid with condensation. She can feel everyone’s eyes on her.

“Because that girl, who grew up to be the woman behind you, was your daughter.”

Silja’s mouth falls open, possibly to scream, but nothing comes out. She looks over her shoulder at Agnes who finally meets her gaze. Her eyes are glistening with tears. Silja turns back to Adam. Magnus and Franziska are watching with grave faces. “No, that can’t be possible. I can’t…” she stutters out. Her hands drop to her stomach. She had always assumed that she was barren like so many of the other women who grew up in the wake of the catastrophe. There was radiation everywhere, making their bodies inhospitable to life. She had never been careful, never seen much of a point in it, and she never faced any consequences. 

Adam takes a step toward her, forcing her to look him in the eye. For a split second, she sees the Jonas she knew, swimming in the whites of them, careful and kind, but it vanishes quickly enough that she tells herself she’s imagining things. “Remember how I told you that your work for Sic Mundus isn’t yet complete?”

She nods, unable to speak.

“This is how you help us get to Paradise. When the time is right, you will travel to 1890. There, Magnus, Franziska, Bartosz from 2019 and a younger version of myself are stranded. Your role is to keep Bartosz from losing his way. You will marry him and, through that union, Hanno and Agnes will be born. This needs to happen for the prophecy to be fulfilled.” Adam pauses for a moment, watching her face. “Do you understand?”

Silja feels impossibly lightheaded. She places her hand on the console to steady herself. She sucks in a deep breath but it doesn’t help. Bartosz. The image of him, standing beside his parents in the portrait, flashes across her mind. The seriousness of his eyes, the furrow of his brow. She remembers the notes between him and Jonas that she had read, can picture the scrawling-slant of his handwriting. The way Jonas’s mouth would twist with pain sometimes after he told a story where Bartosz was at its center. No matter what Bartosz did, Jonas always assured her that he was a good person who was often misunderstood. A new tenderness blooms in her chest at the thought of him, the man that will be her husband. She never thought she would get married, never thought she would be a mother, never thought she would be anything other than a harbinger of righteous death. Disbelief gives way to something softer, kinder. She looks over her shoulder to look at Agnes.

“Is this true?” Silja asks, her voice trembling. Agnes nods. The next thing she knows, Agnes’s arms are wrapped tight around her. For a moment, Silja’s too shocked to move. Then, she hugs her daughter for the first time.

*

Silja forgot what smiling felt like, the way it pinches into your cheeks. Her childhood had not been a happy one and whatever small joy felt stolen somehow, not hers to have for long. During the small pocket of time she spent with Jonas, she got a little used to how it felt, but even on the brightest days they shared, there still wasn’t much to smile about. 

But now that she knows her future, Silja finds herself smiling all the time. Sometimes, when she wakes in the morning, it takes her a moment to believe that this is all real. That, soon, she will be taken away from here, to fulfill a role that Adam has chosen for her. No more executions, no more patrol, no more stumbling through a forest with corpses hanging from the trees like baubles on a necklace. The life that Jonas had promised her, all those months ago, one where she truly belongs, where she’s to have a family and a home and all of the dreams she gave up on long ago.

After her path had been revealed to her, Adam said that Agnes would provide her with the necessary information. “Bartosz is not to know that you are one of us,” he said, with a frightful sort of seriousness that made Silja’s spine straighten. “To him, you will be Silja Tauber, a poor girl from the countryside who has come to Winden to make a living. Nothing more.” Once he felt that she understood the magnitude of her task, he said that they were free to go and Agnes accompanied her back to the caves. 

They do not talk about it immediately. Instead, the knowledge of their relation to each other stretches between them like a golden string that sometimes catches the light. The woman she now knows to be her daughter says that she cannot answer all of Silja’s questions about her future but she can answer some of them. “Too much information might disrupt the cycle,” she said on their way back from the power plant, her voice warm with apology. Silja was too elated about her escape to feel particularly frustrated. She often told herself that she’d do anything to live a life that’s even halfway normal.

Agnes sleeps in the caves alongside her when she’s able to. On the nights she does, they stay up late, their faces lit by the dim white of Silja’s flashlight. Sometimes, she has trouble believing that she will one day give birth to someone so beautiful. Jonas was the first person to call her pretty and she didn’t believe him. But Agnes is more than pretty, there is poetry to the curve of her lips, the fluttery dark of her eyelashes. Every once in a while, Silja finds herself staring at her for too long, trying to find the places where they might match. 

“What do you have questions about tonight?” Agnes asks, as they get into their sleeping bags. The last couple nights, Silja asked her about what Winden was like in her time, trying to imagine an older version of the ruined town that she’s haunted like a ghost. Agnes described horse drawn carriages, cobbled streets, rooms with four walls that were warmed by fires. A fairytale world that Silja’s just barely able to picture. Her daughter was surprised by her delight. “You know, it’s fairly primitive, compared to the future. We didn’t have plumbing,” she said, with a raised eyebrow and this did nothing to dim Silja’s smile. 

“Not this future,” she said in reply and Agnes’s brow softened with understanding. More than once, she’s mentioned that she had no idea that her mother came from somewhere so horrible. Adam’s story of Silja’s origin apparently took root and Agnes had only learned differently once Adam decided she was old enough to know better. 

The relationship between Adam and Agnes continues to be a mystery to Silja, but she can tell that it’s a question that Agnes won’t be able to give her the answer to. Part of her wonders if it’s because Agnes is her daughter, his niece. The Silja with sense always pushes the thought away before it makes her too feel too much. Adam cannot let himself be weakened by the soft-heartedness that comes with family. He has denied himself those things so he could devote himself to the pursuit of Paradise, to saving all of them from their suffering. 

Tonight Silja’s questions keep getting stuck in her throat. She’s had the whole day to think about it. She’s gotten all of the practical questions out of the way, the ones that don’t betray the fact that, despite everything she’s been through, she’s still a teenage girl. She twists a lock of her hair around her thumb until it gets red and swollen, then lets the strand unravel.

“Adam mentioned another child. One named Hanno?”

“He’s my older brother.”

Growing up, Silja rarely let herself dream of children but she had always thought that two was the right number. That way, they’d never get lonely, like Silja often did when she was young. She says her son’s name to herself once more. It must be after her mother. Her heart swells at the thought. When she looks over at Agnes, she’s surprised by the dourness of her expression. The hard set of her jaw. She must feel Silja’s eyes on her but her gaze remains fixed to the ceiling. 

“Are you close?” 

Agnes’s brow wrinkles. “Not anymore,” she says, before turning away from Silja. “It’s getting late. We should go to sleep,” she adds. This happens sometimes, when Silja gets to close to something that Agnes isn’t able to tell her about. The first couple times it happened, she’d been worried that she’d done something wrong, but in the morning, Agnes always acted like nothing had happened, her morning greeting always bright and sweet. After a couple of weeks, she’s gotten used to it. She mumbles her agreement before rolling on her side and tries to not let herself wonder about what Agnes might be keeping from her. 

*

Once summer begins to draw to a close, Adam makes his way down to the caves to impress upon them the importance of their tasks, the necessity of their speed. “Paradise is closer than it ever’s been before,” he tells them, in that loud, booming voice of his. No longer does Silja linger on the edges, a skeptic. Instead, she stands behind Adam at Agnes’s side. There’s a current in the air, rippling and frenetic, and Silja lets it take hold of her. The faith that she’d thought she’d lost forever has begun to return, made stronger and stronger everyday as she prepares for her new future.

The camp is always abuzz with activity, everyone working as hard as they possibly can, even the elderly and the injured. Most mornings begin just as sunlight peeks over the trees, everyone eating together in a cold, determined silence. After years of not caring much about the passage of time, every day bleeding into the same grey nothing, Silja finds herself hoarding every precious minute. She splits her time between doing everything she can to deliver them to Paradise and learning everything she can about Agnes in the limited time they have before her departure to 1890.

Her daughter is a serious woman, who smiles infrequently and speaks in quick, blunt sentences. Even if Agnes didn’t grow up in ruined Winden, it doesn’t seem that her life has been easy. The exact nature of its difficulty, Silja is not privy to, and it hurts her, to know that there are things that she wasn’t able to protect her child from. Sometimes, when Agnes’s melancholy fills the air between them, she considers asking after it but she suspects that this question, like so many others, will not be answered and she will be left adrift in the sea of everything she doesn’t know.

They’re walking through the forest together. Silja’s checking the Sic Mundus traps to see if they’ve caught squirrels or rabbits for dinner that night. Agnes offered to join her. The first trap, not far from camp, was empty so they’ve wandered deeper into the forest to see if the others have fared better. 

Though Agnes is more invested in her survival than Jonas was, she still doesn’t have the instincts that Silja’s developed over the years. More than once, Silja’s had to pull her back to prevent her from falling into one of the military’s bear traps or drawing the gaze of one of their drones. The protectiveness she feels toward her daughter is a powerful thing and she finds herself watching Agnes’s movements out of the corner of her eye, just to make sure she doesn’t get herself into any trouble.

The traps closer to the lake prove to be fruitful. When they come across one of them, the squirrel that has been ensnared is still breathing, eyes wide and fearful. Wooden spikes have ripped through its insides and Agnes winces at the sight. Silja moves quickly, disengaging the trap with her foot. The squirrel is still trembling. Just like Elisabeth taught her, she bends down and grips the creature’s neck in her hands. In one quick movement, she twists until she hears a crack and the body goes still. A death far more merciful than most living things in this forest get. When Silja looks up, she sees that Agnes has turned away, her face pale.

“You okay?” she asks, slipping the still-warm body into her bag. Agnes nods, her eyes fixed to the ground. Silja wipes the blood onto her pants. When she was younger, the sight of red on her hands used to bother her, but she’s long since gotten used to it. She wonders if it will be the same in her new life or if she will finally be able to have clean hands.

“Can I ask you something?” Agnes says, breaking Silja’s reverie. Agnes’s expression reminds her of Jonas, pained and dark. She nods. It takes a moment for Agnes to pull the words from her throat and every second of silence fills Silja with trepidation. 

“Have you ever killed someone?”

Silja stops walking. She turns to face Agnes and tries to figure out if she is willing to lie to her. She wants to more than anything. It has been nice, seeing herself reflected in Agnes’s eyes. The ease of her admiration, the steadiness of her love that Silja has done nothing to earn. She knew this moment was going to come but it has taken so long to arrive that she almost convinced herself it was never going to happen. When she opens her mouth, the truth is the only thing that comes out: “yes, more than once. For Sic Mundus.” 

She prepares herself for Agnes’s disdain, her disgust, but instead, her face splits open with relief. “I have too. Adam told me it needed to happen. That I needed to be the one to do it. I knew it was the right thing to do. But, every night…” she trails off, her eyes scrunching closed with torment. She opens them and turns to Silja. “Does it ever get easier?”

Silja purses her lips. She doesn’t know what to tell her. Even if Agnes is a grown woman, she is still her child, and, though they have not known each other long, the thought of her suffering hurts Silja. She wants to make it go away but she knows that the comfort she’s about to offer to her is a cruel one. “One day, you will be able to see the good that came from it, and that will begin to outweigh the bad. It never does completely. But it can get close,” she says. She reaches out and grasps Agnes’s hand in hers. “You are a good person, Agnes. I’m sure you had the right reasons,” she adds, squeezing her hands before letting them go. Agnes’s expression is unchanged.

“I have a son,” she says, finally. “His name is Tronte.”

Silja’s heart stutters. During the time she and Agnes have spent together, talking about everything and nothing, there’s never been mention of a child. Her grandchild, she tells herself, and the thought makes her dizzy. “Where is he?” She asks. Agnes turns away from Silja, almost like she’s ashamed. 

“I had to leave him behind. Adam needed me and…” she trails off, pain clouding her eyes. “He has his own role to play. A future that I’m not a part of that only my absence makes possible,” she finishes. She clenches her fist then opens it. “I didn’t even get to tell him goodbye.”

Like a dam, Agnes breaks and then she’s in Silja’s arms, her body shaking with heaving sobs. Silja doesn’t know what to do, no one has ever come to her for comfort, but as Agnes’s heart thuds against hers, she remembers how Elisabeth would soothe her whenever she was sad. Silja follows the same rhythm and mutters the only words that were ever able to make her stop crying: “it’ll be okay, Agnes. In Paradise, we’ll all be together.”

Her crying eventually turns into hard, hiccupy breaths. When they step away from each other, she wipes the tears away from her face with stubborn hands. Her eyes are red and mournful. For a long time, neither of them say anything. Silja can feel the warmth of the squirrel’s blood, pooling at the bottom of her bag. She reaches out and places her hand on Agnes’s shoulder. 

“Let’s get back to camp.”

They walk back in a careful quiet. Once they arrive, they run into Magnus who says that Adam needs Agnes back at the power plant. Neither Silja or Agnes is particularly happy about it but they know there’s nothing to be done. When Agnes walks away from her, a strange feeling of loss comes over Silja, almost as though Agnes has taken part of her heart with her, and she wonders if she’s beginning to understand what it means to be a mother.


End file.
